the great physician shortage
America is currently experiencing the beginning of a shortage of doctors that looks like it’s only going to get worse. Fewer and fewer people are undergoing the training it takes to become a doctor. Add this to the fact that the American population is aging, and you have to perfect equation for a health care nightmare.
There are several reasons that less students are choosing medical school. Many believe that the fact that there are now a number of careers in the medical field that do not require as much training and still have good salaries has contributed to this shortage. There is also the rising cost of American medical schools and malpractice insurance once one begins their practice.
Whatever the reasons are that students have chosen against medical school and finding physician jobs, there is no denying the fact that the decrease in applicants has been a trend for the last fine years. If medical colleges are not able to increase the number of physicians graduating then it is estimated that their will be a shortage of anywhere from 85,000 to as many as 200,000 doctors by the year 2020.
Aside from making it harder for an ill individual to find a doctor without having to wait an increasingly long amount of time, this will also effect the quality of the care people receive. The medical field has always been highly competitive, meaning that the best doctors were in demand and the one’s with less skill had to settle for lesser positions. If a shortage of this magnitude does occur then hospitals maybe consider hiring individuals with less skill, individuals that they wouldn’t have considered prior to the shortage.
If this shortage does occur, it is believed that it will hit smaller towns much worse than it will larger cities. Larger areas will have the benefit of multiple hospitals, where as smaller areas will most likely have only one or two choices for healthcare. One solution for this problem has been to increase recruitment of medical students from small towns. Many of these individuals, once trained, would be likely to return to their home towns.
No matter what solution is reached, it is evident that one must be found and quickly. Still, despite the negative side of the physician shortage, those who do graduate from medical school will have the ability to be choosier in the positions they take and will most likely be offered increasingly high salaries.