October 24, 2008

Shortage of Training Slots Threatens to Stall Influx of New Doctors

States fear they will lose the physicians they are educating if they have to send them elsewhere to medical school

By KATHERINE MANGAN

Phoenix

In the past two years, the number of first-year medical students in this Sun Belt city has nearly tripled. That is good news for a city that, like the nation as a whole, is growing, graying, and grappling with a shortage of doctors.

But while the number of medical-school campuses in Arizona doubled — from two to four — in the last few years, there is no assurance that all of the new doctors they graduate will stick around to practice in the state.

Medical

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