Interesting article in NEJM with a different perspective on the physician shortage:

NEJM -- Physician Workforce Crisis? Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription

There is also another argument against increasing practioners. As anyone who has read the IOM report on quality knows, hospitals are very dangerous places. Our health care system may have reached the point where the incremental harms associated with exposure to the health system are greater than the incremental gains in health obtained from increased access.

The point is that although it would appear that increasing doctors would be a good thing, it is not necessarily so. Further, once the floodgates are opened, it will be difficult to reverse. Thus, I think a conservative approach with respect to expansion of physician training is best.