Abstract
Throughout medical history, physicians have rarely formed unions and/or carried out strikes. Today, the medical profession worldwide seems in a heightened state of discontent, but their chosen directions to fight back over their conditions of labor appear blurry and ineffective. With the continual increase in corporatization schemes, physicians continue to be drawn into the role of employee of ever-larger organizations which leave the independent physician-run practice behind; it has become financially more and more difficult to maintain a practice while procuring sufficient reimbursement from insurance companies and patients. As a result, they are not able to maintain their professional independence, which would allow them to act as their patient’s agent in determining what would be done and where it would be done. Because they now have to obey the corporate mandate of revenue enhancement and cost cutting, they no longer have free rein to do as they wish in their professional practice. This condition may impair patient well-being and may surely affect the larger public health.
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Salmon, J.W., Thompson, S.L. (2021). Physician Employment Status: Collective Bargaining and Strikes. In: The Corporatization of American Health Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60667-1_6
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