To A600 and Charlie:
As I conclude a thirty year tenure as a physician the activity that I do is not nearly as alluring as it once was, and for many of us not sufficiently lucrative to slog away.
My medical school, a Jesuit institution of which I am most proud, does indeed have an increasing fraction of islamic students, something not at all present during my time there in the mid 1970’s. The Internal Medicine Residency program of my current medical center about halfway between NY and Washington depends on decent students and doctors from various parts of Asia who over time have become valued colleagues. There is nothing wrong with them as physicians, yet it portends a change in what the pool of applicants find attractive. This being my 20th consecutive XMas on call, the Jewish doctors who would constitute an easier minyan than at any of our synagogues that day are notably older. There are more non-Jews who now take their turn in the hospital on what for most people is the most desirable day to be home. There weren’t all that many Islamists or Hindus working with me this weekend. The selection of who takes call seems to reflect a combination of lack of seniority within some groups or volunteers who no longer have children at home in other groups. I do not know the statistics, but I suspect the Jewish dominance in medicine was on the wane.
Recently an old friend from Rockland County where I was raised was admitted to the regional hospital. To satisfy my curiosity, I looked up some of the internal medicine and specialty rosters of physicians, expecting to see a place with Jewish physicians and Catholic nurses. Not so. They have a lot of Asians doing the direct patient care and the obviously Jewish doctors seemed older. I think that trend is likely to continue with less practitioners and fewer scientist among our lantzmen.