Technorati Tags: Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, DoctorsNearly 6,000 doctors along the Gulf Coast were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina in the largest displacement of physicians in U.S. history, university researchers reported Monday.
How many of those doctors will set up shop permanently in other cities, or decide to retire instead of reopening their practices, remains as unclear as New Orleans' future.
"We don't know what this is going to mean to health care," said Dr. Thomas Ricketts, who led the study by researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "We've never had to deal with something like this before..."
More than half were specialists, with 1,292 in primary care and 272 in obstetrics and gynecology, the study said. Also, about 1,300 medical students at Tulane and Louisiana State University moved to other programs in the region, mostly in Baton Rouge and East Texas.
I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Katrina Displaces Nearly 6,000 Doctors
From the AP/ABC News: