[dragonwriter]

> If residents are just cheaper doctors

Residents are cheaper doctors, but they are cheaper because they are less trained, less experienced doctors. They aren't equally-capable doctors with lower salary demands.

[pas]

Sure, but the 90% of problems don't require brain surgery and a consult from a team of specialists.

[walshemj]

probably not 90% once your actually admitted to hospital especially if the hospital is a centre for the trickier problems.

[dragonwriter]

Sure, but lots of real problems require more than the skill level expected of residents, if nothing else to have reasonably justified confidence that the problem isn't one which requires more specialized attention.

[pas]

At that point someone with WebMD and a scriptbook of a random House MD season is more efficient anyway.

But maybe the problem is that if we would have more generalists that'd just shovel more load on the specialists.