Seeking a Balanced Physician Workforce for the 21st Century
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
THE HALLS of academia and the chambers of Congress echo with a call for more primary care physicians. Much of this stems from the need that managed care systems have for more primary care providers.1-4 In addition, many believe that more primary care physicians would improve access to care in rural towns and inner cities.5-7 There also is a perception that we have too many specialists and that the care they provide is too expensive,3,8-14 and there is alarm that the proportion of physicians training in primary care is decreasing.4,7-9,14-20
A consensus has developed that better balance in the proportion of primary care physicians and specialists must be achieved, and this consensus has been translated into a specific proposal: that the percentage of medical graduates entering the primary care disciplines of family medicine, general internal medicine, and general pediatrics be increased from the recent levels of
Footnotes
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Reprint requests to Health Policy Institute, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226 (Dr Cooper).
