France, as expected for some years, lacks doctors.
The reason for this is the idea that arose in the 1970s that a reduction in the supply of care could reduce demand.
This suggestion, having led to the numerus clausus of medical studies, did not take into account either the yet foreseeable aging of the population, nor its increase and even less the ever-increasing requirement of “aging well”.
The situation is even more acute during the summer period when there are large population movements towards the countryside or the seaside. multiplied by ten or more.
The situation is further aggravated by the insularity of certain municipalities, making recourse to the local hospital, located on the mainland, difficult and costly for the patient and the community.
The departmental councils of the College of Physicians have, among their prerogatives, that
of “being at the service of physicians in the interest of patients
”.
It is difficult to understand, therefore, that the ordinal institution is incapable of showing a minimum of flexibility or adaptation and refuses offers of help from doctors of medicine from other specialties, than that, however, recent general practice, since created in 2004.
In times of shortage of general practitioners, it is better to have a medical presence, even from another specialty, than a total absence of a doctor.
Collective platform
This leads, despite the protests of elected officials and letters requesting temporary exemption, to the total absence of medical coverage in certain areas.
This is for example the case this summer on the island of Aix in Charente-Maritime where an anesthesiologist-resuscitator was refused by the Departmental Order of Physicians the right to replace, during the summer season, the doctor sick GP.
An island that welcomes more than 300,000 visitors each year during the summer finds itself without a doctor today.
There is of course no question of calling into question the law which provides that only a practitioner of the same specialty can replace another.
But, if the law remains the law, the ordinal advisers should be able to know the spirit of it and to consider that in a period of shortage of general practitioners, it is better to have a medical presence, even from another specialty than a total absence of a doctor.
Do we need to remind them that the state doctorate in medicine is the common pillar of all their colleagues and that one of the first qualities taught to the future practitioner is the knowledge of his own limits and in particular of the "
primum non nocere
" ( "first, do no harm", editor's
note
)?
We can understand the concern of general practitioners to protect their young specialty, but it would be so easy to sometimes blame them for prescriptions in one of the other medical specialties.
So it is up to the College of Physicians to fulfill its role and to agree to sometimes adapt to local particularisms, especially in medical deserts in times of shortage.
Otherwise what is it still good for?
Pr. Marc Olivier Bitker is former head of the Department of Urology at La Pitié, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne University of Medicine.
Pr. Jean-Léon Guermonprez is an associate in cardiology and former head of the cardiology department at Pompidou Hospital
Dr. Vincent Pointillart is a former professor of surgery
Patrick Denaud and mayor of the island of Aix
