Shortage of doctors in US- Future prediction!

[love21]

“U.S. Likely to Face a Shortage in 2020” – U.S. Council on Graduate Medical Education
(COGME) Report (2005) - In January 2005, the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME)
released its 16th Report, “Physician Workforce Policy Guidelines for the United States, 2000-2020”
recommending an increase of 3,000 medical school graduates by 2015 in order to meet rising demand
and need. Only under the most optimistic of various supply and demand scenarios outlined in the report
would the nation have an adequate supply to meet demand in the year 2020. When the mid-points of the
projected supply and demand scenarios outlined in the report are used, the net result is a projected
shortage of about 85,000 physicians in 2020 – which is equivalent to approximately ten percent of
today’s physician workforce

[AUCMD2006]

this didn't take into account the pace at which new DO med schools are opening or expanding (Nova is now basically running med school on two shifts) and all the new MD schools that have either already opened (FSU,UM-FAU satellite) or the ones that will open in the next 2-4 years (VT,Beumont) right there is another 1200-1500 grads. there is also expansions of current med schools almost accross the country...the medical school attached to my program is expanding its class by 60% in the next 3 years and much more in another 2 years by forming a partnership with another university and saving time by using a navy school that closed for building/library infrastructure. and that is just the begining.....the future of maintaing almost 30 caribbean medical schools is unlikely...the big ones may remain and regress in size to their 1980-1990 levels but there just likely will not be a need for the other 25.

[BrendaB_MD]

I am always a bit skeptical about these forecasts of shortages. The chart below shows the number of physicians and nurses per 100,000 population.

year physicans nurses
---------------------------------------
1970 143 369
1980 190 560
1990 230 714
2000 278 833
---------------------------------------
source: Folland, Economics of Health and Health Care, 4th ed.

The number of health care workers per 100,000 has nearly doubled in 30 years! There has also been an expansion of midlevels.

I wonder whether the shortage is projected because of a forecasted increase in the intensity of medical care (i.e. a continuation of the trend in the chart) or due to other reasons.

[stephew]

this has been reported on several threads.

[BrendaB_MD]

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

NEJM -- Physician Workforce Crisis? Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/16/1658?query=TOC)

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.

[GeorgeMD2B]

The future need for a lot of foreign medical graduates will probably wane, more medical schools are opening up in the US. Osteopathic schools are the ones expanding the most, many people who would have gone to the Caribbean will probably go to these DO programs in the future.

[BrendaB_MD]

The question is whether there really is a shortage at all. The article makes the good point that the expansion of medical school enrollment is a mistake and that the forecasted shortage is really due to poor organization of health care. Increasing supply will have a number of negative effects including reducing physician income.

The future need for a lot of foreign medical graduates will probably wane, more medical schools are opening up in the US. Osteopathic schools are the ones expanding the most, many people who would have gone to the Caribbean will probably go to these DO programs in the future.