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- According to the American Medical Association, there are currently are 794,893 physicians in the United States.
- In early 2005, the American Medical Association and the Accreditation Commission for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) confirmed that the U.S. will be faced with an 85,000 to 200,000 physician shortage by year 2020.
- According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 250,000 of the practicing physicians—one out of three– is over age 55, and will probally retire within the next 20 years.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts there will be 212,000 physician openings by the year 2014 due to growth and net replacement of retiring physicians.
- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1980 and 2005, the nation’s population grew by 70 million people—a 31% increase.
- As baby boomers age, the number of Americans over age 65 will grow as well.
The demand for an increase in the number of practicing physicians is high. In recent years, one way that the United States has been able to accommodate the rising population has been by relying on an increased number of foreign-educated physicians.
- Currently, one in four new U.S. physicians is an IMG (Source: Association of American Medical Colleges).
- In comparison to U.S. medical graduates, a greater percentage of IMGs specialize in the primary care discipline and locate to rural and underserved areas to practice.
Although IMGs will not completely fulfill the physician shortage crisis, their services can help in the overwhelming lack of quality healthcare to the underserved segments of the population.
- Right now, approximately 30 million people live in federally designated shortage areas where there is an inadequate supply of health care providers (Source: Association of American Medical Colleges).
The Greater Medical Center believes that increasing the number of IMGs that enter the U.S. and practice is one possible solution to the anticipated workforce crisis. In doing so, IMG training and practices will need to be compatible with U.S. medical graduates and therefore this will require more IMG acceptance into ACGME teaching hospitals for clinical education. In recent years the U.S. has been confronted with the fact that the country is producing too few physicians to accommodate the growing population. As a result, an undersupply of physicians has many on edge as this growing population of aging citizens will soon demand more care than can be rendered. | |
