Why is med school so hard to get into if there is a shortage of doctors?

[Anonymous]

There is a shortage of doctors BECAUSE med schools intentionally limit the number of seats they have. Or the government does. I'm pretty sure in the 80s physicians lobbied to limit the # of seats available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a shortage because it's hard.

Nope- factually incorrect!!

In the 80s Congress and the AMA decided that there were wayyy too many doctors and purposefully decided to create this shortage- look it up!

That sounds a lot more plausible than the idea that in a country as big as ours we don’t have enough kids smart enough to be doctors.

[Anonymous]

The previous posters glossing over the fact that it costs a LOT of $$$ to train the Drs as one of the reasons for limited spots. Someone has to pay for this, but our government has chosen that's not a priority. But go ahead and keep wishcasting based on limited knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The previous posters glossing over the fact that it costs a LOT of $$$ to train the Drs as one of the reasons for limited spots. Someone has to pay for this, but our government has chosen that's not a priority. But go ahead and keep wishcasting based on limited knowledge.

I'm so glad you posted this. I posted earlier, but you know, I never thought of the fact that medical training is expensive. Thank you.

Oh wait, I have a daughter in med school and a nephew in residency right now. Yeah, everyone knew the training is expensive, and it's not a core reason for limited spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because it's cheaper to farm in a bunch of Indian and Chinese med school graduates.

yep. It's much cheaper

Cheaper for who exactly?

United Healthcare

Such an ignorant answer. Are you under the impression that United Healthcare cares where the billing doctor went to school?

You definitely missed the point. Provider wages (paid by insurance companies) can be suppressed if you bring in labor from the developing world.

So-called shortages in U.S. labor are often pressed as a political issue with the proposed solution of importing cheaper labor. This is in every sector of the economy.

Bill Gates practically invented that "false shortage" approach. Read the book "MicroSerfs" some time. Later, Cisco, Oracle, and others perfected the strategy. It still goes on today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of doctors, just no one the average American would want to see. I know I’m not the only one that looks at a doctors credentials and skip over any that have a degree from an unknown school or one from the Caribbean.
On the flipside, I took my dd to a pediatric practice that had 3 Harvard grads and one from Cornell. Saw all of them before moving on. They were terrible. I told one in private to subtly bring up my dd’s weight problem and the first thing she told her was “your mom is worried about your weight gain”. Another one ignored a symptom that was later diagnosed as something serious, and the 3rd one couldn’t have been more disinterested.
So we have a lot of doctors but many of them are not that good.

One of my doctors went to school in the Caribbean. She’s fantastic. I never thought to check credentials until I kept seeing it on here and looked up my regular doctors and specialists. At that point, I had been going to her for years. I’m glad I didn’t use this as a reason to never make that initial appointment.

"He graduated from the University of ... Grenada! ... And his graduate work was done in... Aruba!"

"An all-Caribbean schooling... well, tally me banana!"

Frasier

Caribbean medical schools are test mills. A doctor with Caribbean credentials wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’m glad to hear someone’s had a good experience with one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a shortage of doctors BECAUSE med schools intentionally limit the number of seats they have. Or the government does. I'm pretty sure in the 80s physicians lobbied to limit the # of seats available.

Not any government, but instead the medical union - AMA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Foreign doctors will work and live anywhere in the US and there are countless places in the US that American trained physicians do not want to live in for residency, let alone as Attending physicians.

Only for long enough to get their medical residency finished, get medically licensed, and become US permanent residents, then they decamp to big cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're willing to go DO, it's not nearly as hard.
https://www.aacom.org/searches/reports/report/aacomas-applicants-and-matriculants-average-gpa-2016-2023#:~:text=The%20report%20*Applicants%20Matriculants%20Trends*%20summarizes%20the,respectively%20*%20Science:%203.44%20and%203.49%2C%20respectively

there's a reason for that...don't go DO

They have to pass the exact same medical license boards that an MD does.

What exactly is your reason?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're willing to go DO, it's not nearly as hard.
https://www.aacom.org/searches/reports/report/aacomas-applicants-and-matriculants-average-gpa-2016-2023#:~:text=The%20report%20*Applicants%20Matriculants%20Trends*%20summarizes%20the,respectively%20*%20Science:%203.44%20and%203.49%2C%20respectively

there's a reason for that...don't go DO

They have to pass the exact same medical license boards that an MD does.

What exactly is your reason?

Country club something something. "...just not our sort."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because it's cheaper to farm in a bunch of Indian and Chinese med school graduates.

yep. It's much cheaper

Cheaper for who exactly?

United Healthcare

Such an ignorant answer. Are you under the impression that United Healthcare cares where the billing doctor went to school?

You definitely missed the point. Provider wages (paid by insurance companies) can be suppressed if you bring in labor from the developing world.

So-called shortages in U.S. labor are often pressed as a political issue with the proposed solution of importing cheaper labor. This is in every sector of the economy.

Please provide any semblance of proof for the statement you made.

If you do not understand this from following U.S. news and policy over the last 30 years, it is because you choose not to.

I understand perfectly that you've been told a lot of nonsense by Fox news that you now believe without any actual proof. Either produce the evidence or shut up.

I'm definitely left of center and I probably hate faux news more than you do. But I am annoyed that wages have been suppressed by large corporations through lobbying congress for special visa exemptions that just so happen to increase their profit margins. Those are just facts. You can choose to like or not like them.

Again, provide evidence or shut up. If it's so evident, why haven't you done it yet?

PP’s defensiveness regarding something pretty obvious is fascinating. If the number of medical school seats isn’t increasing, but demand for doctors is… how exactly do you think that gap gets filled? Have you not noticed the vast number of doctors with medical training in foreign countries that are practicing here in the US? Do you want 15,000+ screenshots of medical credentials? What ridiculous science project do you need to see to verify that the US imports labor when there are shortages. Even in the medical field. And yes, sometimes importing labor happens at the expense of American citizens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The previous posters glossing over the fact that it costs a LOT of $$$ to train the Drs as one of the reasons for limited spots. Someone has to pay for this, but our government has chosen that's not a priority. But go ahead and keep wishcasting based on limited knowledge.

I'm so glad you posted this. I posted earlier, but you know, I never thought of the fact that medical training is expensive. Thank you.

Oh wait, I have a daughter in med school and a nephew in residency right now. Yeah, everyone knew the training is expensive, and it's not a core reason for limited spots.

No no, we are not talking about medical school tuition. You’re not that ignorant, are you?!

We are talking about the cost of training in the form of hospitals that host medical residencies. Your DD and nephew’s residencies are not paid by you or your sister/brother. They are partially funded by the government and the government was lobbied to limit the positions it funds. And there’s no way in this environment that we’ll see a budget that increases that funding substantially.

Limited residencies=limited medical school spots. Med schools don’t want to be graduating doctors without a guarantee that the vast majority of them can actually train and go into practice after graduation. So the cycle continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Foreign doctors will work and live anywhere in the US and there are countless places in the US that American trained physicians do not want to live in for residency, let alone as Attending physicians.

i.e. if you went through all the trouble of attending medical school and completing residency would you really choose to live and work at a hospital in an old factory town in West Virginia or Tennessee where the only stores for 50 miles are a Walmart and some truck stops? i think not. But if you're from India you'll take that job over residing in the slums of your own country.

Given how expensive it is to immigrate here for residency, the alternative isn't "the slims" of India.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The previous posters glossing over the fact that it costs a LOT of $$$ to train the Drs as one of the reasons for limited spots. Someone has to pay for this, but our government has chosen that's not a priority. But go ahead and keep wishcasting based on limited knowledge.

Residencies are actually huge money printers. They help physicians be more productive for a fraction of the salary. IIRC a residency program lost their license and hospitals bid ~8 figures for the opportunity to open their own residency spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign doctors will work and live anywhere in the US and there are countless places in the US that American trained physicians do not want to live in for residency, let alone as Attending physicians.

Only for long enough to get their medical residency finished, get medically licensed, and become US permanent residents, then they decamp to big cities.

Still longer than an American would have stayed.