Supply of doctors, can you really have too much?

[xxxxxx666666]

It was predicated that by the year 2000, the United States will have an oversupply of doctors and thus medical schools should restrict their number of students.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-03-01/news/1997060012_1_foreign-medical-schools-new-doctors-american-medical


"WASHINGTON -- The American Medical Association and representatives of the nation's medical schools said yesterday that the United States is training far too many doctors and that the number should be cut by at least 20 percent."The United States is on the verge of a serious oversupply of physicians," the AMA and five other medical groups said in a joint statement. "The current rate of physician supply -- the number of physicians entering the work force each year -- is clearly excessive.""


.................


"The number of medical residents, now 25,000, should be much lower, the groups said. While they did not endorse a specific number, they suggested that 18,700 might be appropriate."


http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/21/us/study-predicts-large-surplus-of-physicians.html


"The United States will have a surplus of 165,000 doctors by the year 2000, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health reported today in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.More than 90 percent of the surplus doctors will be specialists and 40 percent of all medical specialists could be unnecessary by the year 2000, the author said, adding that that underscored the need for medical schools to push students into family and community medicine"


End quotes.



Well, the year 2000 came and went and there still isn't an oversupply of doctors, in fact, there seems to be a shortage, anyway my question is: can we really have too many doctors?



Or even better why not make everyone a doctor?

Should we give medical training to everyone?

What are your thoughs?

[CECE]

Well, the year 2000 came and went and there still isn't an oversupply of doctors, in fact, there seems to be a shortage, anyway my question is: can we really have too many doctors?



Or even better why not make everyone a doctor?

Should we give medical training to everyone?

What are your thoughs?

Theoretically, too many doctors would mean increased competition for jobs and ultimately their average salary dropping. Which would then probably cause medical schools to take less applicants, like stated above, and/or make less people go into the medical field. So I guess 'too many' is kind of subjective. Depends on what 'too many' means to you.

Why not make everyone a doctor? Medical school is 4 years long, although some 3 year long accelerated courses are offered at some schools for primary care physicians. After medical school a 4 - 8 year long residency must then be completed, depending on what kind of doctor is being trained. The point being, it would be incredibly time consuming and incredibly expensive to make everyone a doctor. Not too mention not everyone could handle the material and technical skills required.

Should we give medical training to everyone? Well I think it would be helpful if everyone had knowledge of CPR, how to spot the signs of a stroke, how to stop bleeding, and maybe a few other basic medical skills. Maybe as a required course in high school or as free government training. Just random ideas. I would certainly see the helpfulness in it but not all people are capable of performing these tasks, you may end up dishing out more responsibility than people can handle in some cases. So, I would keep the training simple for that reason.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Or even better why not make everyone a doctor?
We need enough good doctors to efficiently serve the needs of a population. Realistically, even some people who want to be doctors and graduate medical school aren't very good at it.

[xxxxxx666666]

Theoretically, too many doctors would mean increased competition for jobs and ultimately their average salary dropping. Which would then probably cause medical schools to take less applicants, like stated above, and/or make less people go into the medical field. So I guess 'too many' is kind of subjective. Depends on what 'too many' means to you.

Why not make everyone a doctor? Medical school is 4 years long, although some 3 year long accelerated courses are offered at some schools for primary care physicians. After medical school a 4 - 8 year long residency must then be completed, depending on what kind of doctor is being trained. The point being, it would be incredibly time consuming and incredibly expensive to make everyone a doctor. Not too mention not everyone could handle the material and technical skills required.

Should we give medical training to everyone? Well I think it would be helpful if everyone had knowledge of CPR, how to spot the signs of a stroke, how to stop bleeding, and maybe a few other basic medical skills. Maybe as a required course in high school or as free government training. Just random ideas. I would certainly see the helpfulness in it but not all people are capable of performing these tasks, you may end up dishing out more responsibility than people can handle in some cases. So, I would keep the training simple for that reason.


We need enough good doctors to efficiently serve the needs of a population. Realistically, even some people who want to be doctors and graduate medical school aren't very good at it.

All the more reasons we should give everyone medical training, although perhaps not everyone do the stuff *real* doctors can, however, some so-called doctors can't either.

Why not give everyone an extra 4+ years of education or some 3+ accelerated courses so everyone at least know what sort of medical help is need when they are in trouble or see others in trouble?

And besides, with all the current news talks in America about how "unaffortable" Obamacare is because of the shortage of doctors and the supposed rising healthcare costs, why not just train everyone as a doctor and those who are good at it can go on doing it?

It will definitly make healthcare cheaper and maybe even better, at least in my opinion.

[Firebrand]

As long as there is a single person who goes without medical care when they need it, there is not enough provision for medical care. In other words if anyone has to go without a doctor then there clearly are either not enough doctors or the ones that do exist are being seriously underutilised.