Surgeon General calls for more minority doctors

ATLANTA — The new U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday called for stepped-up efforts in increasing the number of minority physicians.

In what was one of her first speeches to a large crowd since she was sworn in Nov. 3, Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are minorities is only 6 percent — the same proportion as a century ago.

I agree with Dr Benjamin's request for more minority doctors. I think we also just need MORE doctors, of any race or gender, to lower the cost of health care.

Dr. Benjamin is a member of an exclusive cartel, the American Medical Association. The cartel, like all other crafts and clubs, make it more difficult for new members to enter, if there is a profit to be gained by the already entrenched members. If there is profit to be made by lowering the standards in order to grow the membership of a club or organization, then the existing members will lower the standards.

As it currently stands the requirements to become a doctor are so expensive and time consuming that the supply of potential doctors is small, and even smaller for minorities. It is rare to find a minority that can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars for college and medical school, and who can sit through 8 to 10 years of instructions and supervision, often ridiculed in the form of initiation rites from entrenched doctors.

Dr. Benjamin, and other leaders, should break the monopoly of the doctor, nurses, and hospital association that keep out competition. They should lobby for a shorter training period for one to become a doctor or nurse and any person or organization should be able to open a hospital anywhere they wish. There is not reason a person should be required to go to school for 8 to 10 years and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to learn how to remove a gall bladder.

And if Dr. Benjamin is to promote a healthy America, she should lose some weight.

Charles Tolleson, 6', 160 lbs.