Fewer US med students choosing primary care - Yahoo! News

Fewer US med students choosing primary care - Yahoo! News


The reality of Workforce Shortage hit home for me by this article whose findings basically highlighted the issue. I was astonished by the fact that only 2% of graduating Medical Students in this study have interests in going into primary care. There are alot of rigours associated with primary care that turns off many physicians (who are they to blame, I mean, the opportunity of more money and less work is attractive even to the most noble of us).

Although the issue is problematic as it is, the continuation of this trend will be catastrophic especially to underserved communites. As we all know, many of these communities provide physicians an even lower incentive to practice due to the low reimbursement and complexities that Medicare and Medicaid (which are most often used) provide.

So my question is, how do we address this problem? I personally like the "Robinson's Theory" ( a number of us shoould already be familiar with this from our Economics class), which basically suggest to create a system in which med school is made to be much more expensive (as if it isn't already expensive enough, right?), but physicians who choose to actually practice medicine/primary care would have their outrageous medical school expenses paid for by the Govt. My memory might be failing me, but I think a similar system is used in Cuba in which med school is free for individuals who commit to working in underserved communities for a number of yrs.

I am sure there a plethora of arguments against this plan (heck, I can think of a few myself), but I'm putting it out there because as future health leaders, it is necessary to start brainstorming on ways to tackle pertinent problems such as this. Anyway feel free to offer your thoughts.