This is what I'm thinking. I feel that Internal medicine, Family medicine, pedi, rads, general surgery and orthopedic surgery should go up and the demand would keep going up. I'm not sure about how the other specialities should trend in the future.
most demanded physician specialities in the future?
- Thread starter drox
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All specialties will go up in demand.
Nice list though. You listed almost half the specialties including 4 of the biggest.
Nice list though. You listed almost half the specialties including 4 of the biggest.
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demanded by who? the patients? other physicians? society at large? the specialists?
when you say future, when are you referring to? over the next 5 years... or in 15 years?
the population of baby boomers makes up a large percentage of the u.s. population... as they get older, they'll potentially need more medical services. so, one could argue that all non pediatric specialties will be in demand.
when you say future, when are you referring to? over the next 5 years... or in 15 years?
the population of baby boomers makes up a large percentage of the u.s. population... as they get older, they'll potentially need more medical services. so, one could argue that all non pediatric specialties will be in demand.
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i would expect geriatrics, neurology (all the boomers are gonna start stroking out), and interventional cardiology (CAD) will all see plenty of business as the baby boomers age.
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Doctors will only take so much of the bureaucrats (both government and insurance) demands before they buck. It'll be ugly! It's actually starting now..
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And oncology
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toxicology
Those two are the biggies in the U.S. so I would say Cards and Heme Onc.
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They may cure heart disease, cancer, and diabetes some day--but crazy NEVER goes out of style.
Psych is forever, baby...
Psych is forever, baby...
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Emergency medicine - as long as people continue to be stupid, we will always have a job.
I don't see stupid going away anytime soon
And someone has to be there after 5 and on weekends to see all the PC stuff, and see the MIs, CVAs, etc so the cards, neuros still have work to do...
I don't see stupid going away anytime soon
And someone has to be there after 5 and on weekends to see all the PC stuff, and see the MIs, CVAs, etc so the cards, neuros still have work to do...
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It's always funny to watch these threads turn into "why my specialty is the most important."
The most heavily recruited specialties are now, and will be for the foreseeable future, primary care.
The most heavily recruited specialties are now, and will be for the foreseeable future, primary care.
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as a converse, anyone care to speculate as to which specialties will see declining need in the future? the only one i can think of is interventional radiology, and that's only if they lose all their battles to the system specialists. by that i mean that i could see neurology starting an interventional neuroradiology fellowship and saying, "hey, we're the CNS experts, so we'll learn the technique for playing around up there." i could envision similar stuff for other body parts, but i expect this will be a big battle in our lifetime. anyway, aside from IR possibly losing some of its 'market share' i really can't see anyone else going anywhere.
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welcome to 10 years ago. actually, neurosurgery gets involved in interventional procedures more so than neurology, although both routes are available.
IR has always had people stealing their stuff. cardiac catheterizations? yea, they started that, yet the subspecialty is still going strong. one of the biggest threats to IR actually comes from diagnostic rads, as MRA and CTA get better and better there's less of a need for diagnostic angiograms.
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Pretty much any specialty that deals with the elderly will see an increase in demand. I might as well throw the ophtho hat in the ring. The boomers are going to be getting cataracts, macular degeneration, and someone already mentioned diabetes, so there will be big demand for eye guys.
There was actually a study published in 2006, sponsored by the government, which looked at which medical specialties will be most in demand in the future. Odieh is right. Any specialties that deal primarily with the elderly are going to be in shortage.
Cardiology was #1, with a projected 60% increase in demand, followed closely by ophthalmology, with 59% by the year 2020.
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Depending on what advances are made in stenting and grafting, CT surgery might make a comeback.
D
deleted87716
I doubt that they're teaching this in medical school.
Nonetheless, according to the Merritt, Hawkins and Associates' 2006 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives, family medicine is the second most recruited specialty. Demand is expected to remain strong as the U.S. population grows and the need for medical care increases with the increasing prevalence of chronic disease.
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OH MY -- are you people serious??? I am incredulous. Really. I mean, what are they teaching y'all in school these days??? You really truly have no friggin idea what you're saying. And you actually believe that you do -- that's the scary part
God help U.S. medicine with people like y'all going into it...
Settle down there champ. I'm not saying that you'll have a hard time finding a job in IR. The question was about the most heavily recruited specialties, not which ones you like the best.
I can't imagine that myself and the other posters on this thread are going to do irrepairable harm to the state os "U.S. medicine."
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How about we just go with "everything". People will always break bones, always get sick, always get skin cancer, eat crap...I think you're pretty well set no matter where you go.
I do believe that there are certain fields people are going into now that will be RADICALLY different in 20-30 years. Different to the point that it won't be what some of the people matched into....like radiology. The people that match for the right reasons into that will always love it, but I have the sneaking suspician there will be a blitz of modalities in the next 20 years. Heck, 25-30 years ago nearly everyone in medicine had to relearn how to view anatomy for CT...now I see medical students viewing the nice little slices on a regular basis.
Basically, anything that is technology driven will see some huge changes and huge demand because it will be too tough for people to keep up with otherwise. Complete assumptions with no supporting evidence....but that is what I think.
I do believe that there are certain fields people are going into now that will be RADICALLY different in 20-30 years. Different to the point that it won't be what some of the people matched into....like radiology. The people that match for the right reasons into that will always love it, but I have the sneaking suspician there will be a blitz of modalities in the next 20 years. Heck, 25-30 years ago nearly everyone in medicine had to relearn how to view anatomy for CT...now I see medical students viewing the nice little slices on a regular basis.
Basically, anything that is technology driven will see some huge changes and huge demand because it will be too tough for people to keep up with otherwise. Complete assumptions with no supporting evidence....but that is what I think.
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There is a palpable and demonstrably growing need for physicians that will manage the multiple co-morbidities evident in an aging population with an extended longevity. This is the purview of the primary care physician (FM and primary track IM). The growing need is beginning to emerge and is reflected by increasing recruitment and locum/permanent opportunities.OH MY -- are you people serious??? I am incredulous. Really. I mean, what are they teaching y'all in school these days??? You really truly have no friggin idea what you're saying. And you actually believe that you do -- that's the scary part
God help U.S. medicine with people like y'all going into it...
While there certainly will still be an need for all of the sub-specialties noted above by their respective advocates, your typical aging patient with HTN, DM 2, OA, etc, etc will want to be managed by their PMD. Concomitantly, orthopedists, cardiologists, neurologists, etc will obviously not manage all of the aforementioned co-morbidities nor spend the time necesaary to do so with their patients. They will address the limited spectrum of illness relevant to their specialty.
This trend isn't something resulting from "what they are teaching y'all in school". Rather, it reflects the predictable result of community medical need in a population that exhibits extended lifespan due to appropriate preventative practice (primary care medicine) and effective chronic disease management (largely, primary care medicine as well, with specialty management of specific conditions).
D
deleted87716
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They've been cutting back the number of primary care spots for several years, because there's actually too many of them right now.
I can't predict what will be undersupplied in the future, based on how many graduates are being created right now... However, I do think there's going to be a glut of diagnostic radiologists 10 years from now, the way they are churning out so many of them, with the spectre of outsourcing looming only a penstroke away.
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I went to a lecture last week by the CFO of Kaiser NW who was talking mostly about different models of physician reimbursement. He noted that they've had such a hard time recruiting Primary Care docs (FPs and IM) that they pay around the 65th - 75th percentile based on national average for their Primary Care folks but around the 50th percentile for most other specialties. Granted, the specialists are still making more money than the PCPs but they recognize that to recruit and keep good people, they need to pay what their worth.
Just another piece of data adding to the "Primary Care is most in demand" side. And no, I'm not at all interested in Primary Care...I think I'd kill myself.
Just another piece of data adding to the "Primary Care is most in demand" side. And no, I'm not at all interested in Primary Care...I think I'd kill myself.
D
deleted87716
Incorrect. The number of available positions has decreased, but that's only because some of the weaker FM programs have closed due to an inability to fill their slots. There is no "they," and there has been no intentional reduction in the number of FP residency positions.
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Emergency medicine - as long as people continue to be stupid, we will always have a job.
I don't see stupid going away anytime soon
In addition to stupid people, I don't see old fat people, athletes, or teens driving without morotcycle helmets going down in number anytime soon.
For those reasons, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation will SURGE in the future.
As long as there are motorcycles and brain injury, wars and amputees, diabetics and amputees, and sports injuries, there will always be need for rehab docs. Oh, and baby boomers demanding better quality of life, that creates demand for PM&R too.
D
deleted87716
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That's a good point because it makes a distinction between available residency slots and jobs. Those two things are actually inversely proportional but people get them confused if they are med students or earlier in their careers.
The other thing everyone needs to bear in mind is that the useful time horizon we're looking at here is 5-10 yrs out. It doesn't matter to any of us in this discussion what happens in 30 years because some of us will be retired (that would be me
) and the rest will have long since had to choose, train and be in established careers. No one will be switching from Gastro to PM&R 20 years from now because the boomers need rehab more than scopes or whatever. If you're choosing career paths based on what you think will be in demand and therefore easy to find a good job think 5 years out if you're a med student and 10 years out if you're a premed.- Joined
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As the baby boomers become a larger group and as people keep having crack load of kids that they can't afford, ALL specialties will probably rise. The bigger issue to discuss is who will exploit us in the future. Insurance or the US government/public?
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"Diagnostic Radiology is BY FAR going to be in the most demand over the next 20 years. Secondary prevention and imaging together are the future"
no doubt demand will be high. it is also one of the easiest to outsource. a couple of the smaller hospitals i worked in during training...the radiologist went from working in house...to having the files sent to his computer...to then vpn/remote desktop..and now they are considering outsourcing to another group at night that may not even be in this country. i had to go to fellowship at this point and dont know what became of it. technology is a double edged sword
no doubt demand will be high. it is also one of the easiest to outsource. a couple of the smaller hospitals i worked in during training...the radiologist went from working in house...to having the files sent to his computer...to then vpn/remote desktop..and now they are considering outsourcing to another group at night that may not even be in this country. i had to go to fellowship at this point and dont know what became of it. technology is a double edged sword
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it's unlikely that radiologists who do not have a US license will ever be able to have a final say, just as foreign docs cannot just simply come to the US and start practicing. insurance companies would never allow it.
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..dunno what happened....think they were looking to contract with some canadian companies. dont think the hospital department cared who was doing the reads...it was contracted via the hospital...money goes to them...then they pay the outsource fees. insurance doesnt want what is best..but what is cheapest
http://www.nighthawkradiologyservices.net/
http://www.nighthawkrad.net/Marketing/Articles/modernhealthcare.pdf
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/06/29/radiology_work_shifts_to_overnight_overseas/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002110413_outsource06.html
http://www.nighthawkradiologyservices.net/
http://www.nighthawkrad.net/Marketing/Articles/modernhealthcare.pdf
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/06/29/radiology_work_shifts_to_overnight_overseas/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002110413_outsource06.html
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Well, seeing as how our President recently declared that all Americans can get access to healthcare by going to the ER... I'd say that Emergency Medicine will be in high demand in the future
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Can't believe no one mentioned cardiology? America is only going to get fatter and theres no end in sight. Plus Heart Disease is the #1 killer in america
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umm... did you even read the thread?
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skimmed it, after rereading I see its been mentioned a few times but I'm really shocked that its not on the top of everyones list.
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These threads always go the same way. Someone posts the question, someone else fairly quickly posts a definitive reply which omits certain fields, exaggerates others, marginalizes others, etc. Then over the next two weeks people jump in and say, "what about x" and related comments. A few people get offended and angry, and lots of people make really detailed or passionate arguments about why certain fields are more important/better/more critical/more interesting/etc. After a month or two usually every specialty has been mentioned at least once.
Basically, every specialty is important, and it's kind of silly to argue about which ones are "more" important. Syphilology and phrenology have been declining for awhile, but just about everything else has been growing and will probably continue to do so.
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you are always so on target, yaah. i saw the light on phrenology a few years ago and am about to finish my chelation therapy fellowship.
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yes, but it was my understanding that all these companies have american docs reading the images, no?
Taken from the above articles:
"NightHawk Radiology Services has developed an innovative approach to the delivery of radiology services by operating centralized, state-of-the-art reading centers in Sydney, Australia and Zurich, Switzerland. Staffing U.S.-trained, board-certified radiologists specializing in emergency radiology, these locations are ideally situated for U.S. care because when it's the middle of the night in Boston, it's daytime "Down Under.""
"Nighthawk firms say the radiologists they employ are US-trained, many of them immigrants who return to their countries to work; others are US citizens willing to live abroad. The firms monitor their work and get them credentialed. And these radiologists often only render preliminary diagnoses that initially guide doctors but are subject to a final review by US-based radiologists."
edit: i see that there is one group of non-US board cert docs doing preliminary reads. it is a scary thought for radiology, but these will still have to be read by US board cert radiologists the next day. I don't think people are ready to have foreign docs giving the final say, just as most would not want to travel to india to have heart surgery. What if one of them makes a mistake? What will happen then? You can't sue some anonymous indian radiologist.
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i was just making the point that it is an easier field to outsource. those were just the first 4 that popped up on my search...there were several hundred more hits. sure some are US docs, or board cert. US docs in other countries, some "associate" with US docs, some are prelim reads...etc. i'm not arguing better/worse...it is just a trend that rads will have to battle and money tends to drive things
