| Many of us have seen the show ER and have | | | | of time and you must accomplish a certain |
| learned a great deal about how the internal | | | | amount during your residency for it to count. |
| workings of an emergency room work. We've | | | | UCLA medical school has two teaching hospitals |
| seen the way doctors come on the scene after | | | | (not ER's specifically but actual full fledged hospitals |
| all that schooling and have even bigger challenges | | | | with many floors, and practice types). |
| to surpass once they've "made it" to the medical | | | | One of the goals of teaching hospitals such as the |
| practitioner side of things. What we don't often | | | | UCLA medical school's two, is to create new and |
| see is how much work is involved just to get to | | | | innovative ways to practice medicine. These |
| the point where you can stand in an emergency | | | | hospitals serve as public research facilities as well |
| room or any hospital and call yourself a doctor. If | | | | as actual hospitals where patients are treated and |
| you're looking to become a doctor simply because | | | | doctors learn from watching and interacting with |
| it pays well, you're in for a real surprise. The | | | | other doctors (when they reach a certain point |
| reality is that most doctors make an incredible | | | | where they are competent to do so). Many new |
| income by the layman's standards but by their | | | | things come out of these hospitals and funding to |
| own they are making peanuts. The reality is that | | | | these hospitals are often determined by these |
| there is so much work, so much responsibility, | | | | successes and innovative growth of medical |
| and so much training involved, that never stops- | | | | practice strategies and techniques. There is a lot |
| by the way, that the pay doesn't even come | | | | of pressure to perform and doctors are |
| close to matching the work involved. | | | | encouraged to be proactive in their research and |
| Back to the ER show, one thing you might | | | | development of new technologies. One such thing |
| remember is the way they called this a "teaching | | | | that came out of a teaching hospital once was a |
| hospital" and there were constantly new doctors | | | | heart transplant. Imagine how many people would |
| showing up to get their tenure or to receive their | | | | have not lived had this one innovation not |
| residencies. This process alone takes a great deal | | | | happened! |