Health Reform Marks Beginning of Gen X Healthcare

Few topics can get physicians worked up like generational differences in practice styles. It's easy to fall back on dichotomic caricatures with this topic: Older physicians are hard-working professionals who think younger doctors aren't productive or committed enough to medicine and patients, and younger doctors are tech-savvy life balancers who view older doctors as burned-out luddites. Although they are overblown stereotypes, there are grains of truth in both of those perceptions. But the deeper reality is far more complex. The characteristics that define each generation of providers overlap and constantly evolve, so that the two are beginning to resemble each other more than they think.