A doctorate in what is rather important. I value a STEM degree from a good school far more then any Arts degree.
And just where did the U.S. build new permanent hospitals? The reality with many existing hospitals buildings --- it would probably be quicker to build a new structure outfitted with oxygen, etc. for COVID ICU patients than try to retrofit a 50+ year old building to convert rooms to ICU.
Permanent or not, building a field hospital is a lot more work than expanding ICU capability. Or are you trying to argue it isn't? Because we can talk about the amount of work each requires if you would like. And the cost. We can ALSO talk about the many field hospitals that were completely and totally unused during the crisis.
Yes... early on tents were deployed. Now would you rather be in a proper hospital or a tent if you were critically ill with COVID?
Who cares where I'd rather be? What was the capacity of these field hospitals? Some were never used at all.
It's a pointless question I only needed 4 years of school to be in high demand in the professional world. More school was never attractive.
Most were not used because they did not have adequate equipment used for critical care -- most were only able to provide basic care for minor cases.
So they were build for ICU overflow (COVID) but they didn't have adequate equipment for critical care?