# The Long-Term Effect of the COVID Crisis on the Medical Profession **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [August 31, 2021, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824 "2021-08-31T10:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/21 "2021-09-08T00:12:54Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > That’s a good policy which I’d really like to see used more broadly (and to be fair it does seem to be increasing). At least some anti-vaxx resistance seems to be reflexive and not terribly deep. And bribery has a proven track record 😑. The “hell, I’ll do it for 100 bucks” crowd (or $200 or $500) is not to be dismissed. The day that Ontario finally announced that we’d start using a vaccine passport system for people to access non-essential services like restaurants, the number of people booking appointments for the vaccine doubled. So they sold out their “deeply held beliefs” just so they could go to a bar. Okay, fine, I’m glad the idiots are finally getting vaccinated, but goddamn, I’m going to hate these laggard plague rats for the rest of my life. Anyone who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing simply cannot be trusted ever again. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/22 "2021-09-08T00:41:38Z")
Life and death responsibility is always stressful. One way to handle the stress is to tell yourself you have been through worse. Once COVID has become rare, and baring something that really is worse, like war, many medical professionals can look back on this and say they have seen worse. Some will think I’m being facetious, but people really do have such thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/23 "2021-09-08T14:19:56Z")
There was a recent AP article about the traveling nurse gig that I found interesting: > **[U.S. hospitals hit with nurse staffing crisis amid COVID](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/sep/02/us-hospitals-hit-with-nurse-staffing-crisis-amid-c/)** > > The COVID-19 pandemic has created a nurse staffing crisis that is forcing many U.S. hospitals to pay top dollar to get the help they need to handle the crush of patients this summer. Why be a staff nurse when you can make so much more as a traveling nurse? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/24 "2021-09-08T14:50:29Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > One complaint I hear from nurses is that hospitals are willing to pay $100+ an hour for traveling nurses, but they aren’t willing to staff the hospital properly with staff nurses who would make closer to $35/hr. That’s because the permanent staff person making $35/hour has costs above and beyond the $35/hour, and they’re not as easily disposed of temps when no longer needed, or a patient complains, or they get uppity, or just displease the hiring person in some vague manner. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/25 "2021-09-08T14:52:16Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > The day that Ontario finally announced that we’d start using a vaccine passport system for people to access non-essential services like restaurants, the number of people booking appointments for the vaccine doubled. > > So they sold out their “deeply held beliefs” just so they could go to a bar. I suspect in some cases it wasn’t a matter of deeply held beliefs so much as it wasn’t a priority for these folks when being unvaccinated didn’t inconvenience them. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/26 "2021-09-08T15:23:11Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I suspect in some cases it wasn’t a matter of deeply held beliefs so much as it wasn’t a priority for these folks when being unvaccinated didn’t inconvenience them. Those guys are even worse! [Say what you will about the tenets of anti-vaxxers, at least it’s an ethos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w) ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824/27 "2021-09-08T15:58:06Z")
My wife is a Nurse Practitioner. While her practice wasn’t, and isn’t, treating the COVID patients, some of her colleagues are – in the hospital. But a secondary effect of COVID that many of us have heard about is the deferral of non-emergent care by patients unwilling to take the risk. Like young people not participating in the insurance risk pool, reasonably healthy people deferring routine appointments, screening, and treatment for relatively minor issues did two things: it caused some issues to fester and become worse, and it increased the average acuity of the patients who _did_ seek care. In other words, only people who were either very concerned or – relatively – quite sick sought care. And the economic model at my wife’s clinic didn’t change – same number of patients per day, same number of minutes per appointment. The MDs have also had to rely more on the mid-level practitioners (ie, NPs and Physician Assistants) to see some of _their_ less acute patients (because they had/have to treat the inpatient COVID patients in the hospital), further increasing the average acuity that my wife and her peers see. And our county’s ICU beds are currently at 100%. Yeah. It’s been exhausting. I’m watching some of my wife’s colleagues – at all levels – age like they’re the POTUS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-long-term-effect-of-the-covid-crisis-on-the-medical-profession/949824.md?page=1)