If there's an expected doctor shortage, why is it so hard to get into med school

[neurodoc]

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The doctor shortage is a lie. It's maldistribution of doctors. They can't find enough people who want to practice primary care, or practice any type of medicine in the middle no where.

That, and also the fact that there is a large number of IMG's that can be tapped by residency training programs, so why should the US invest in opening new medical schools to train US MD's?

It involves both politics and economics. Why, for example, does the US allow itself to be so dependent on foreign oil? That question is similar to the one about why the US doesn't graduate enough MD's to satisfy the US demand for MD's...😕

 

[neurodoc]

....
2. We don't need any more medical schools or medical schools slots because the Residency positions are capped. Residency is the rate limiting step for a medical education going forward and not medical school. Until we get an expansion of residency positions there needs to be a freeze on new med schools and creating larger first year classes in existing schools.

3. While you may want an unlimited number of med school positions available now the lack of a residency position for these students means some will never get to be a practicing Physician. Medicine is not like the legal profession; so, the rate limiting step is not the graduate school itself but the post graduate training.

Well, what about the following statistics (from the NRMP) for 2012:

Total # of Slots: 27,772
Total # of Apps: 38,377
US MD Seniors: 15,712
US DO Apps: 2,360
US IMG's Apps: 4,279
non-US IMG Apps: 6,878
Total Matched: 22,934


So the fact is that US med schools do not graduate enough physicians to fill all of the available residency slots. There are certainly plenty of training slots that go unfilled each year. That is why IMGs are able to find positions in the US. Granted that most of these positions are in "less competitive" fields, such as FP, Peds, IM, and Psychiatry. The disappointment of many unmatched USMGs is due to their inability to get into their "competitive" specialty choices (a boon to US and non-US IMGs). So a part of the problem is the "maldistribution" of USMG specialty choices. But the major problem is still that, even in spite of the 1997 Medicare budget cuts, the US does not provide for the training of enough "home-grown" USMGs to satisfy our national need for physicians. Congress has plans to add 5,000 ACGME training slots in the next 5 years, which is fine in itself. There are also plans to increase the number of USMGs, but none envision a 5,000increase...That still leaves us with a deficit in USMGs.

These are the numbers, and they speak for themselves. 🙁

Thenumbers speak for

 

[BLADEMDA]

U.S. Med Schools are ramping up the number of students per class and opening new schools.
The projected number of new graduates by 2017/18 will be much closer to the number of Residency positions. Hence, the numbers do add up but it takes time to get a new school open and ready.

The data from 2012/2013 reflects a smaller graduating pool than will be present circa 2018. In addition, I think some room should be left for outstanding IMGs to train in the USA.

 

[BLADEMDA]

https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/12-237 EnrollmSurvey2013.pdf

Please review page 13 before making any further comments about opening even more Med Schools.



Total # of Slots: 27,772 (Residency spots 2012)

Projected MD/DO graduates from med School circa 2017= 28,100

So, we will need some more Residency positions especially if we want some IMGS to match as well.

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

[deleted307836]

U.S. Med Schools are ramping up the number of students per class and opening new schools.
The projected number of new graduates by 2017/18 will be much closer to the number of Residency positions. Hence, the numbers do add up but it takes time to get a new school open and ready.

The data from 2012/2013 reflects a smaller graduating pool than will be present circa 2018. In addition, I think some room should be left for outstanding IMGs to train in the USA.

Bingo. It won't be very long the number of graduating med students exceeds the number of available residency positions; certainly before the end of the decade.

 

[kyamh]

As I understand, the baby boomer "shortage" doesn't necessarily have to be taken care of with more physicians. There is a greater need than ever before for physician assistants and nurse practitioners who can provide a lot of the primary and mid-level care that the aging population will require.

 

[Womb Raider]

As I understand, the baby boomer "shortage" doesn't necessarily have to be taken care of with more physicians. There is a greater need than ever before for physician assistants and nurse practitioners who can provide a lot of the primary and mid-level care that the aging population will require.

And that's exactly what's going to happen.

 

[BLADEMDA]

As I understand, the baby boomer "shortage" doesn't necessarily have to be taken care of with more physicians. There is a greater need than ever before for physician assistants and nurse practitioners who can provide a lot of the primary and mid-level care that the aging population will require.

You are correct and Nursing Programs are putting out RECORD numbers of Nurse Practitioners and CRNAs.

Anyway who says the US govt. is going to increase GME funding and Residency slots by 5,000 is dreaming. With the budget deficits and increasing Medicare/Medicaid cost I don't see Congress funding anything close to 5,000 new spots. Let's hope they add 2-3,000 new Residency positions so every MD/DO will match into some specialty and actually practice Medicine. Without these additional spots maybe a 1,000 MD/DO med students per year won't match at all because IMGs are going to snag a few spots.

Anyone entering med school next year does not really want any more Med Schools to open up. The long term pain far outweighs the short term gain.

 

[neurodoc]

Looks like the DO schools have contributed the lion's share of the increased US class enrollment! Is that because they are mostly private and operate on a business model...and saw an opportunity to expand their "market share?" Pity that state run schools didn't step fully up to the plate. Forgive the mixing of metaphors.😀

 

[vadeem]

I'm really confused. There's an expected doctor shortage of 91,250 doctors by 2020 (http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/daily-reports/2010/october/11/doctors-issues.aspx), and based off my experiences in E.Rs there really arent enough doctors to go around (bleeding out in the hallway in stanford's emergency care for starters). Yet even with this med schools are really difficult to get into (low amount of seats high number of applicants), they're making the mcat even more lengthy under the excuse that'll enable more well-rounded students to get into med schools (that really doesn't make sense. How does being well-rounded correlate with test taking skills on a a 8 hour exam? (How about organizing more in-depth interview processes, better essay questions on the applications?), and there are so many things in med school that just seem designed to weed out students from what they want to do [board part 1 exam scores].

It really doesn't seem to make much sense at all. I understand that not everyone can become a doctor and that's necessary but putting so many obstacles in the way (many of which are totally artificial and unnecessary) just seems counter-productive and unfair. What happens to the people who want to be doctors and have all the skills necessary, but don't test well? What happens to the people that are too busy studying to have 9392349294 E.C.s when they apply to med school? Aren't we just selecting for people who can take tests better than anyone else anyway? It feels like we are just filtering people out "just because" and encouraging unnecessary competition (Unnecessary competition is probably the main reason why I didn't go to UC Berkeley as undergrad. It just ruins the atmosphere, friends, and everyone who tries really hard and does their best should be able to succeed in a positive atmosphere.)

I tried not to get too straw-mannish about this, but I'm not really getting the reasoning. It just bugs me and no I'm not trolling. This just seemed like the best place to ask. Also, there are so many "random" factors evolved in having the right scores that it's really hard to judge things like Undergraduate gpa as if it's a very valid indicator. Like in organic chemistry i had a really good instructor and thus got all A+s, yet some of my friends had the foreign professor with a thick accent, no office hours, who tested them on graduate level o-chem and did not-so-well.

If you truly want to be a physician then this sort of rhetoric is futile.. You can complain and argue about the process all you want, but in the end you're just going to become bitter and hostile. You honestly just need to suck it up and play the game. I know, it is difficult and often unfair. However, there have been tens of thousands of successful applicants in the past so no one deserves special treatment.

 

[MedOldAge]

I never actually saw you here except in the Gas Forums... It's an honor to have you here 😱😱

Gas Forums? 🤣🤣🤣

(new here...so that must be internal communication protocol I don't know) 🙄

This side of the railroad track is different.........yeah, different air quality. 😛

Very appreciate to all of you taking time to comment on these sub-forum where as Agent B said there are a lot of mis-information.

 

[487806]

Gas Forums? 🤣🤣🤣

(new here...so that must be internal communication protocol I don't know) 🙄

Gas = anesthesia. I remembered an old funny thread discussing about the similar thing, but I ain't sure where it is.

 

[MedOldAge]

Gas = anesthesia. I remembered an old funny thread discussing about the similar thing, but I ain't sure where it is.

As a newbie as I am.....learning something every day from the veterans like you and others 😛 👍

 

[487806]

As a newbie as I am.....learning something every day from the veterans like you and others 😛 👍

But... You were here longer than me...

 

[occams_razor]

No. Look at the legal profession's nightmare. If you have a glut of any type of professional, you'll end up with unemployment and a drop in salaries in that field. Working hard doesn't make a difference if there just isn't enough demand for what you do. By maintaining a shortage of doctors, the medical profession protects job stability, job availability, and salaries.

this 100%! trust me, you want a strict cap on the number of med schools and doctors so we don't wind up like so many recent law grads who are unemployed and in a tremendous amount of debt

 

[askamsky51]

Each medical school could open a few more additional slots, relax admission standards/the # of hoops students have to jump through to get in to a point where the cutoffs are statistically telling. Some other medical schools could be opened. That's the best set of ideas I got atm.

There is a common knowledge increase in seats being mandated at schools via the ACA.... There is no need to relax standards since competitive applicants are plentiful and get passed up every year.

 

[askamsky51]

How would that affect the number of residencies? The bottleneck is not at the number of seats in medical school...

And this is the real/current issue

 

[Varaneka]

The doctor shortage is a lie. It's maldistribution of doctors. They can't find enough people who want to practice primary care, or practice any type of medicine in the middle no where.

lol agreed

after interviewing my primary care doc she told me not to choose that as a "specialty"