States Faces Shortages of Primary Care Doctors

[slipslidingaway]

edited to change the title

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june09/doctors_01-06.html

"...A recent survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that only 2 percent of medical students plan to go into primary care. And since 1997, the number of medical school graduates going into the field has dropped 50 percent...

...Medical school loans are huge
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Now, with the economy in disarray, more of these students have an even more compelling reason to stay away from primary care...

...BETTY ANN BOWSER: But there are other reasons medical students are steering away from the field. Because primary care doctors are generalists who deal with a wide range of medical issues, they have to justify more types of treatment decisions with insurance companies..."


In Massachusetts...

"...The result is nearly 95 percent of residents now have health insurance; 440,000 people previously uninsured are covered.

But the downside has been that there aren't enough primary care doctors to go around. Here in Hampshire County in western Massachusetts, at least 20 primary care physicians have closed their practice or retired in the past two years..."