Everyone knows we’re facing a looming physician shortage. Right? After all, wait times are long. Visits are short. And that’s if you can even find a doctor that takes your insurance. Obviously, we need more doctors.
Or maybe… just maybe… the problems in our health system are deeper and more complex, and simply training more physicians won’t actually fix any of them. And maybe the people who’d like for you to believe that it would actually have a different agenda.
(Running time 56:00)
If you’ve accepted that the “physician shortage” is a Thing that Exists, I’d welcome the opportunity to change your mind.
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Some teasers:
If you asked Dr. DeBakey in 1969 how many cardiac surgeons we’d need in 2025 to perform CABG procedures, what do you think he would have said?
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Will simply training more physicians fix the things that are wrong with health care? Or will we simply have a larger number of doctors with the same incentives to practice the way our current doctors do?
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This patient lost her PCP… and she’s been searching for a new one for 2 years. We need more doctors, amirite? (Wait – don’t answer till you hear why her PCP left.)
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It should require little explanation to understand why hospital systems large and small are investing in training more residents – and it has nothing to do with future societal workforce needs.
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The “doctor shortage” isn’t one problem – it’s many, not all of which are equally deserving of our policy consideration.
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Credulous news outlets are quick to quote the AAMC’s upper bound estimate – that we’ll be short 86,000 doctors by 2036. But look at the slope on the equally-likely lower bound. Do you think the line will magically trend horizontally once it hits zero?
The Sheriff of Sodium 