Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage

snip>
The country needs to train 3,000 to 10,000 more physicians a year -- up from the current 25,000 -- to meet the growing medical needs of an aging, wealthy nation, ... studies say. Because it takes 10 years to train a doctor, the nation will have a shortage of 85,000 to 200,000 doctors in 2020 unless action is taken soon.
...
Getto's advocacy of more doctors is remarkable because his advisory committee and its predecessor have been instrumental since the 1980s in efforts to restrict the supply of new physicians. In a new study sent to Congress, the council reverses that policy and recommends training 3,000 more doctors a year in U.S. medical schools.
Even the American Medical Association (AMA), the influential lobbying group for physicians, has abandoned its long-standing position that an "oversupply exists or is immediately expected."
...
The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves.
Congress controls the supply of physicians by how much federal funding it provides for medical residencies — the graduate training required of all doctors.
...
The United States stopped opening medical schools in the 1980s because of the predicted surplus of doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges dropped this long-standing view in 2002 with the statement: "It now appears that those predictions may be in error." Last month, it recommended increasing the number of U.S. medical students by 15%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor-shortage_x.htm

Surprise! Medical malpractice insurance rates *aren't* what's causing the doctor shortage.

doctor shortage.

Or that they've exhausted all the factors that they say will claim one. Surely most of the factors included in the doctor-shortage prediction were known (well, maybe not the older doctors working 15% less than younger male doctors, and women doctors working 25% less).

Interesting article.

a wise career choice.