Why Does America Have So Few Doctors?

Medical school is expensive successful and hypercompetitive motherfuckers

they artificially prevent more people from becoming doctors to keep their own wages high

Red tape and overregulation, basically

#1 Politicians and Lobbyists want to keep it this way
(american doctor supply is purposefully kept low so the salaries of doctors stays inflated)

Annals of internal medicine 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Maybe get rid of that ungodly mcats?

One mistake here is that there are several med school /bachelors degree combined schools you can finish in 6 years. That plus the
option of graduating high school early would make the shortest time to become a trained independently capable doctor (including 3yrs of residency) is 8/9yrs.

for all of u wondering, yes the government caused the problems in our healthcare system - not the free market because it ain’t free.

Why would physician salaries decrease in the setting of a doctor shortage?

Because it suxxs being a doctor... most doctors don't want their children to become doctors..duh...

Perhaps because the government forced to get them fired? Hmm..

Root cause analysis: the culprit is Medicare. If they are not involved… problem will be solved. Sadly, Medicare is involved. Problem will only get worse

4 years Bachelor degree is a total waste of time. It will not change, because, universities will lobby in congress to keep it that way, to fill the college seats.

Why not just disassociate residency positions from Medicare all together. Healthcare providers have a vested interest in training up the next generation of doctors, the ones they have are going to retire one day. Let them seek out their own replacements and offer to do their residency in return for a 1 to 1 contract agreement. I.E. You train here for 4 years, you then sign a contract saying you'll work here for 4 years.

So why don't they change the policy of having a bachelor's degree first? I think this may be the major problem.

there is no h1b cap limit for foreign physicians. so BRING EM IN!!!

It’s just too expensive for me.

OK, in the UK, for home students with no prior degree, med school costs the standard price (£9250 a year), plus living costs, for the first four years, after that (for the remaining one or two years) no fees and you even get a bursary. There is of course a massive bottleneck in getting a medical school place at all.

After graduation, unless you fail the "situational judgement test", you are all but assured of a place on the two year, and salaried, "Foundation Programme", which is rotational, and the equivalent of a double length internship.

You are not assured of getting into a "residency", or a training programme leading to consultant, but you can still work in hospitals as a "house officer" after passing the Foundation Programme (I think technically after passing the first year of the Foundation Programme, as you would still have full registration with the GMC).

Also, it seems much easier for international medical graduates to practice in the UK. The visa seems easy to get. They do have to do a two-part test, one a multiple choice test that can be done in many places, one an OSCE that can only be done in Manchester. But, after passing, there is no official prejudice, except that doing a non-training job, and getting your certificate signed, is much better than going straight into the training system even if eligible as more slack is allowed in non-training jobs (there after all not being any deadline).

Why is training so long? I mean... If it was more specialised, it would take 4-6 years for a fully functional specialist. And 2-3 years for someone who can deal with most common cases.

9 years total for Switzerland? Wrong. 6 years med school + at least 5 years of residency (and 99% won't be able ro fill in the teaching catalogue in 5 years...)!!!!!

The US complains about shortage of doctors but makes it impossible for internationally trained physicians to enter the field.

People from my country are far more experienced because we encounter hundreds of patients a day and have been trained working 100+ hours a week. Our medical students and interns are first assists to surgeries and need to have delivered personally (not assisted) dozens of babies before completing their OB rotation.
And yet our board certified specialists need to take an overpriced exam designed for med students to even participate in patient care in the US. I am very fluent in english but still need to take the OET while many Americans don't even know the difference between "should have" and "should of".
The US medical system is burning and your systems are fueling the fire and keeping the firefighters out.

The issue is not that it is 'for profit', every living creature is generally out for their own benefit, it is that it is extremely anticompetitive.

We can shorten residency so the spots become vacated more frequently. If shorter European medical training isn't resulting in tons of malpractice, then we're showing our ignorance my clinging to overly long training.

This would also make more residency types attractive to female doctors who want to start families.

In stead of investing too huge money in medical field, students’ future isn’t secure. Therefore, I will call it worthless degree of medical doctor.

Congress actually limits the amount of residency slots that can exist in US every year.

Privatizing profits and socializing losses is the American way.

There is a certain demographic being "preferred" in medical schools. This demographic when they get their MDs only practice for 3-8 years after their residencies, before leaving their careers as medical doctors. I will let the readers figure out what demographic I'm talking about.

That's how the SYSTEM works deaths must increase in order for the authors of the System to rule without a growing population..it is a crime against humanity 👍

I think the way you get Medical degrees is inportant too.

Instead of 4 year premed (basically useless) 4 year med and 3 year practioner schools, there can be 1 6 year med school like rest of the world

Whoz gonna pay for Medical School?

For every problem the world faces today there is a solution at bay tomorrow!

There is a shortage of doctors because the system wants it that way, i hate it when people try to overlook the obvious and over analyze ish.

Does this suggest that were those obstacles removed, the desire to be a doctor is big enough to fill the shortages?

Just hire more PAs and NPs

Doctor shortage? Weren't you warned about Obamacare? 😂

Y’all need to start obeying

Because it takes forever, not justified, un justified student loans, underpaid residency, ridiculous work life balance.

Why

Make it easier to get into med school!

Before Obama care passed, my Dr had a lovely office, nice practice. When they forced that on us, she had to quit, couldn't make a living. She went to work in her husbands law office. Hospitals charge $7-8 for one Tylenol. It's insane.
Slow the voice down, its ridiculously fast.
Edited.

The solution is not to import foreign doctors, it's to remove barriers for qualified Americans to obtain training.

So "Free Market Capitalism" failures. That is America in a nutshell.

People who complain about US medical system should look at how other countries operate. After that, they will feel much better about the quality of care they receive in this country despite all the deficiencies. Nothing is perfect. High quality care is expensive.

First and fifth reasons are the same in my country

Long story short America fucks itself

Hmm maybe cause it’s expensive and takes 12 years plus idk I’d start there

Ooh I don't know... Maybe because the education required to become an M.D. or D.O. is stupidly expensive for less than zero good reasons and you have to pay for all of it out of pocket because this country doesn't give a single shit about an educated populace one bit. There's a bottleneck on funding for training positions that is 100% artificially made, but god forbid we change that. How residents are treated like cheap and menial labor for hospitals, years on end despite the highly demanding requirements that come with it. How doctors have lobbied the shit out of D.C. to keep the supply of doctors in this country at any one time artificially low in order to keep their salaries artificially high. The fact that you don't need to be a doctor in order to work in the world of healthcare. The stupid laws put in place to discourage foreign doctors from practicing here.
Basically it's all 100% a self imposed problem that this country intentionally created. Because just like everything else is in this country, turning medicine into nothing more than a commodity is such a great idea! Nothing screams quality preventative care like a for profit healthcare system! No sir!...

Since American doctors can't seem to heal anyone, this could be a good thing.😊