Reply #59: Sure. [View All]

[Occam Bandage]

From the NEJM:

Despite this continuing growth in the physician supply, since 2000 an increasing number of reports by the COGME, the HRSA, states, specialty societies, state medical societies, hospital associations, and a physician-researcher have reopened the question of whether the United States has an adequate number of practicing physicians now and whether it will in the future. Although many of these reports concede that on a national basis there is an adequate number of physicians, advocates of educating more doctors emphasize that shortages already exist in some locales and specialties. Moreover, because the length of time it takes to train a doctor is protracted (8 to 15 years, depending on the specialty), they point out that the United States must plan well in advance of 2020 (the year on which the COGME bases its projection of a future physician shortage) to determine how many practitioners will be needed to accommodate the growing population.

Advocates of increasing the supply of physicians also cite other factors, including the growth rate of the U.S. population (25 million persons every decade), the aging of baby boomers with concurrent increases in health care needs, the pending retirement (and increasingly early retirement) of a large cohort of physicians, an increase in the number of female physicians who work on average fewer hours than male doctors, and the increasing emphasis that doctors under the age of 50 years are placing on lifestyle issues (preferring more personal time, fewer weekend responsibilities, and less on-call duty)

There is also concern that the heavy reliance on IMGs to maintain the U.S. medical workforce substantially reduces the supply of doctors in many lower-income countries, which poses an ethical dilemma for the richest nation in the world, not to mention a foreign policy issue.9,10,11,12 In 2007, some 6600 IMGs entered U.S. graduate medical education programs, and if experience is any indicator, most of them will remain in this country after completing their training.

These factors, plus local circumstances that figure uniquely into every situation, are among the considerations that educators weigh when they decide whether to expand their particular medical school. But educators also must consider the validity of new reports projecting a shortage of physicians by 2020.13 In 2005, the COGME — about a decade after it had projected a large surplus of physicians — issued a report that estimated a shortage of 85,000 doctors by 2020, or approximately 10% of the current complement of medical practitioners.14 In 2006, the HRSA, where the COGME is housed, released a separate report that projected a shortage ranging from 55,000 to 150,000 physicians by 2020, with an acute shortage of specialists representing the largest shortfall.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/16/1741

(The article provides links to the studies)

There is going to be a doctor shortage, not a doctor surplus. A steady supply, and increased demand, does not portend lower prices anywhere but in your head.