Where are the Doctors?
The Washington Post—December 5th, 2011
In health reform, there’s a lot of talk about an impending “doctor shortage,” where we’ll have too few physicians to treat a population that’s getting increasingly older and sicker. By 2020, we’ll have 90,000 fewer doctors than we need, according to projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
That big number, however, masks a lot of geographic variation. Some states are hugely lacking in doctors; others have many physicians. A few maps released Friday, also by AAMC, probe the geography of our impending doctor shortage and what makes particular states more susceptible than others.
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Texas, for example, is home to two of the country’s largest cities, Dallas and Houston. It graduated more than 1,200 medical students last year, second only to New York. About 80 percent of doctors who train in Texas stay in Texas. Yet it has one of the lowest levels of doctors seen in the country.
Read More: The Washington Post
