How to stem the drain of health care professionals

AMA Leader Commentary. By Timothy T. Flaherty, MD. Oct. 1, 2001.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

SEE ARCHIVES

A message to all physicians from Timothy T. Flaherty, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees.

That familiar form for the U.S. Census that arrived in your mailbox last year included a small but significant change. For the first time, the form allowed additional space to record one's age -- now, instead of two boxes, there are three.

The 2000 census found about 65,000 people age 100 or older in the United States. This number is expected to grow to as many as 381,000 by 2030.

About 35 million people age 65 and older now live in the United States - 13% of the total population. In 2011, the baby boom generation -- those born between 1946 and 1964 -- will start turning 65. By 2030, it is projected that 70 million Americans -- one in five -- will be 65 or older.

What will this surge in the elderly population do to the delivery of quality health care?

This larger elderly population is already putting pressure on the Medicare system. It's doing the same within the health care system itself. That's because health care professionals also get older, and they, too, retire.

In the United States, the ratio of physicians to patients is expected to increase by a small amount until about 2009 and then decease for the next 10 to 15 years.

And it's not just age that is responsible for this shrinking pool of physicians. Applications to the nation's medical schools fell 3.7% in 2000, the fourth straight year those numbers have declined.

Attractive jobs in other fields, along with the specter of big medical school debts, are two reasons. Add in the mounting paperwork, regulations and concerns that accompany managed care and you can see that the environment for fledgling physicians is not as friendly as it once was. [...]