Is patient care too demanding for doctors nowadays?

@bayernfan (1430)
Canada
November 18, 2008 1:42am CST
Approximately 5 miillion Canadians, out of a population of 33 Million, are without a family physician. Fewer doctors are choosing family medicine while, at the same time, many family doctors are retiring. Almost all family doctors limit the amount of patients that they will see and are currently not taking on new patients because our government run healthcare system in Canada over works and under pays doctors. After reading the following article, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4AH1CE20081118, I noticed that U.S. family doctors face many of the same pressures: "It found that 78 percent of those who answered believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors. More than 90 percent said the time time they devote to non-clinical paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent said this has caused them to spend less time with each patient. Eleven percent said they plan to retire and13 percent said they plan to seek a job that removes them from active patient care. Twenty percent said they will cut back on patients seen and 10 percent plan to move to part-time work. Seventy six percent of physicians said they are working at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked"." Is patient care just too demanding of doctors? Does government regulation and interference make it impossible for doctors to do a proper job within a reasonable schedule? Do we expect too much from our doctors and from healthcare in general?
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