Twittering about Student Loan Debt and Primary Care Physicians with MedicineSuxAll Education Matters

Twittering about Student Loan Debt and Primary Care Physicians with MedicineSux

After posting an article about a handful of Democrats who are trying to add loan forgiveness for doctors to the health care legislation on Facebook, a great conversation via snippets on Twitter with the wonderful blogger over at Medicinesux, quickly ensued. (There were also many insightful remarks made on my Facebook page, and I want to thank everyone for that lively conversation as well).

My energy remains focused on the overall student loan debt crisis. Of course, I do like to highlight the far-ranging cultural and intellectual ramifications of the problem I believe the crisis is causing and will cause. But I try to strike a steady balance between its macro (i.e., the broad range of societal problems it's causing) and micro implications (the human experiences of being rendered destitute by an unregulated student lending industry). It's nice to find people who can discuss the finer points of how the student lending industry is damaging their own areas of expertise - Medicinesux tells us a story of the hardships that many young doctors are now facing.

I don't dare speak about the health care debates. It's really too infuriating and for too many reasons - where does one even begin? Of course I think it's important to highlight how that crisis intersects regularly with the student lending crisis. I receive hundreds of emails each week, and so many of the stories I read also contain details about health problems and huge bills for medical treatment. I think it's safe to say that these emails probably reflect the struggles of millions of Americans who have to make the difficult choice to either pay for medical treatment or send money to the legalized student loan sharks.

I urged Medicinesux to write a blog post about our conversation last night. He made such good critiques that I wanted to read a fleshed account of those pithy remarks. I was delighted to find on my TweetDeck this morning a note from Medicinesux. He wrote: "wish granted," and provided me with this link.

In the next few weeks I am calling for submissions from readers. If you are interested in sharing your own analysis about the way in which the student lending crisis is affecting your industry, please write me an email (ccrynjohannsen@gmail.com). I look forward to reading and posting your accounts.