Money Makes Many things

There is an obvious mismatch between the needs of the country for
low-cost, high-quality primary care and the career choices of medical
students. A recent survey of medical students found that just 2 percent
were interested in general internal medicine, 4.9 percent in family medicine,
and 11.7 percent in general pediatrics. Between 2002 and 2006, the
percentage of residents in training who intended to enter primary care
practice dropped from 28.1 percent to 23.8 percent. Between 1998 and
2008, 9,100 accredited residency slots were added to the graduate pool in
medical education, but family medicine lost 407 positions (23.3 percent),
and general internal medicine lost 865. Over 40 residency programs in
family medicine and 25 in general internal medicine disappeared in a
single decade.Moreover, the training of greater numbers of midlevel
practitioners has not compensated for the underproduction of primary
care physicians. Only 37 percent of the 80,000 physician assistants are
working in primary care. Half of the 140,000 nurse practitioners are located
in ambulatory settings, but fewer than half of these are directly
involved in primary care.
The 2010 entering class continued the long-standing
trend: 43.4 percent
were from allopathic schools, 18.1 percent from osteopathic schools, and
38.4 percent from the IMG pool.