What are the key regulations preventing medical schools from increasing in size or from new med schools forming? Does it run through the professional associations? Also it would be useful to see statistics on stocks as well as on flows. How has the number of MDs per capita shifted over time? Or # MDs per senior ? Aren’t those the most re…
What are the key regulations preventing medical schools from increasing in size or from new med schools forming? Does it run through the professional associations? Also it would be useful to see statistics on stocks as well as on flows. How has the number of MDs per capita shifted over time? Or # MDs per senior ? Aren’t those the most relevant statistics ? A quick online search found that it has actually increased from 2009 to 2019. So doctors trained abroad are filling in the gap to some degree.
The rate-limiting step is not the number of places in medical schools, but rather the number of residency positions. Doctors don't learn to be doctors in medical school--they learn to be doctors in residency. Because of funding issues, the number of residency positions is effectively limited by the government. You can increase the number of medical schools all day, but if you don't fund more accredited residency positions, you will not increase the supply of doctors. An MD or DO degree without a residency is essentially worthless. It is frustrating how difficult it is to get people to understand this.
yes second this. The link for the sentence "This is exactly what you’d expect when government imposes rigid numerical quotas" is broken for (at least for me). Curious as to what the regulations are
Great questions. I'm also curious to know if there are other non-md medical professionals that are doing the services that some MDs used to do. For example, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, etc. licensure programs are tricky. They help protect the public from bad actors but they are also used by practitioners to create scarcity within the profession.
What are the key regulations preventing medical schools from increasing in size or from new med schools forming? Does it run through the professional associations? Also it would be useful to see statistics on stocks as well as on flows. How has the number of MDs per capita shifted over time? Or # MDs per senior ? Aren’t those the most relevant statistics ? A quick online search found that it has actually increased from 2009 to 2019. So doctors trained abroad are filling in the gap to some degree.
The rate-limiting step is not the number of places in medical schools, but rather the number of residency positions. Doctors don't learn to be doctors in medical school--they learn to be doctors in residency. Because of funding issues, the number of residency positions is effectively limited by the government. You can increase the number of medical schools all day, but if you don't fund more accredited residency positions, you will not increase the supply of doctors. An MD or DO degree without a residency is essentially worthless. It is frustrating how difficult it is to get people to understand this.
yes second this. The link for the sentence "This is exactly what you’d expect when government imposes rigid numerical quotas" is broken for (at least for me). Curious as to what the regulations are
Great questions. I'm also curious to know if there are other non-md medical professionals that are doing the services that some MDs used to do. For example, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, etc. licensure programs are tricky. They help protect the public from bad actors but they are also used by practitioners to create scarcity within the profession.