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Google Reduces Evil Quotient

259
Gus3/22/2010 8:10:00 pm PDT

re: #247 WindUpBird

We already have a REAL shortage of professionals, Steve.

We have a GP shortage right now. We have it because of our current system. I’d link you to evidence of this, but you keep telling us you don’t care. ;-)

Exactly. It’s just misinformation being used to create a climate of fear. Hence the “there will be a shortage of doctors” in the USA. Well, as you correctly point out, there’s already a shortage of US trained doctors. That number is as I noted earlier about 23% which are foreign trained.

USA Today has an article that touches upon the reasons behind the shortage. Keep in mind that this is from 2007 so the number would have increased.

U.S. savior: Foreign doctors

Few new medical schools

Why is this shortage happening?

First, the USA has opened almost no new medical schools in the past 25 years. So you have a physician population that has remained flat serving a U.S. population that is expected to grow by 25% between 2000 and 2025. Major demographic changes in the physician population also must be considered. Nearly one-third of doctors are older than 55, with more choosing early retirement. Fifty percent of all medical school graduates are now women. That is affecting both the total hours worked each year as well as the number of specialists. Family demands are causing many women to reduce their hours or to leave the profession when they have children. Some women doctors avoid fields with difficult call hours, such as anesthesiology and radiology.

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Selective process

We’re also losing more physicians as they finish training here. One reason is that physician shortages are growing in other countries as well. Australia and Britain have extreme shortages. Australia’s shortage is so severe that it has relaxed requirements.

Many doctors are also engaged in cutting-edge research at some of the leading U.S. laboratories. One chief reason much of our best research is done by foreign graduates is because of the way they are chosen to come here. Every American medical student gets selected for residency and fellowship training programs. After that, we have 5,760 slots to fill. About a third of those go to American medical students who went abroad for medical school. The rest go to foreign nationals educated overseas.

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