<< >calling it combat pay is simply reproducing the very prejudices that make
>it combat pay in the first place. the lack of physicians in rural areas
>has everything to do with prestige, status, biases reinforced in medical
>training, etc. . as just one example. >>
In regard to the "rural" aspect, I think the lack of physicians has more to do with money than all of the above. I work at a hospital in a smallish-town off the I-5 corridor. My department contracts services out to a smaller hospital up in the mountains, which is at present in danger of not surviving, as several other rural hospitals in this area that were thriving 30 years ago have not. I don't pretend to know all the reasons this is happening, but I've heard MDs say that they would like nothing better than to live in some of the areas where doctors are in short supply, but fear they couldn't earn enough - too small a base of customers with too little money/insurance, Medicare/Medicaid payments too low. Now, what "enough" means to them I don't know, but I do think there are probably not MD shortages in "rural" areas that are wealthy (rather than communities of dying forest extraction industries and indian res, as here).
The hospital I work for is not doing that well either, finance-wise. The hospital in the next town down makes its cancer patients drive to the big city an hour away for chemo and radiation. For reasons of financial efficiency.
les