= Premium Content

  • Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Previous

Next

Medical-School Enrollments Grew in 2010, Despite Economic Concerns

June 21, 2011, 10:34 am

The number of first-year students enrolled in the nation’s medical schools grew in 2010, giving medical educators who worry about an impending shortage of doctors reason for optimism, according to the results of a survey released this week by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The survey found that enrollment in M.D. programs is expected to reach 21,041 by 2015—a 27.6-percent increase over 2002. Combined with growth in osteopathic-medicine programs, enrollment is projected to be up 35 percent in 2015, compared with 2002 levels. The survey found, however, that more schools are worried that economic constraints may may threaten their ability to maintain or increase enrollments.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Print
  • Comment
  • davi2665

    These increases are not surprising in the face of 16 new medical schools and expansion plans for a host of established medical schools.  Even these increases will not come close to providing the number of physicians needed to serve the medical needs of the US population.  This problem is exacerbated by droves of physicians opting to either retire early or cut back on their practices.  And we still do not have the full fall out from Obamacare and its onerous paperwork, diminished reimbursement, uncertainty for practitioneers, and likelihood of one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter medicine by the federal books.  Without tort reform, the problems of medicine will be exacerbated, not ameliorated.

  • sullivab

    Wow! Nearly the entire panoply of liberal-caused ills. You missed only gun control and the demise of “family hour” on network television. 

    I believe that the problem is not necessarily one of too few physicians; rather its roots can be found in the maldistribution of resources (physicians tend to offer their services in zip codes with high incomes; also, they tend to favor specialties which pay better than the typical family practice doc), and in the  bias towards using the exhaustively-trained MD or DO to provide services that could be provided by a competently-training PA, RN, etc.  Solution? Well, we could let the marketplace work its magic, as it has done so efficiently in the past.  Or… never mind.

  • davi2665

    The “high paying” specialties are not over populated with physicians; indeed, most are experiencing a shortage, soon to be exacerbated by Obamacare.  Family practice and general internal medicine are now becoming so poorly reimbursed that it is difficult for the physician to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans, especially with the delay in earning a living that the long medical training requires.  But, of course, the knee jerk solution of the liberals is to invoke the “barefoot doctors” and the WONDERFUL health care solutions of having the PAs and RNs making crucial differential diagnostic decisions rather than physicians.  I have already had two members of my own family given an egregiously erroneous diagnosis- one related to cancer and the other related to a major cardiac artery blockage- thanks to the wonderful diagnostic acumen of a PA.  With Obamacare, one can count on the marketplace working its “magic”, otherwise known as rationed care by cookie cutter, with long waits and even more pathetic reimbursements of physicians and hospitals.  We will soon see medical tourism greatly expand, as those with available resources (not taxed out of existence by the looming tax increases) taking their business to clinics staffed by US, Canadian, and UK board certified graduates practicing in places that still value the role of physicians in deciding on the appropriate course of medical treatment.  We can only hope that there are still US hospitals remaining solvent after “accountable care organizations”, massive medicare and medicaid reimbursement cuts, and other brilliant strategies of the central planners.  There- have I missed anything related to the disastrous liberal health care agenda.  Hang on to your hats- many more disasters to follow.

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.