Should Canadian medical schools care about the number of physicians they produce?
Physician manpower supply and potential oversupply have generated a great deal of interest in Canada in recent years, especially since increasing health care costs are considered by health care economists to be directly related to increasing physician numbers. The issue, however, is far more complex and deserves further scrutiny and detailed analyses. It is difficult to obtain an answer to even the simple question: how many physicians are in active practice? And many do not understand that there are multiple routes to entry to licensure. Changes in physician demographics, health care delivery systems, patient expectations, and medical advances will have a major impact on projections of future physician needs; and changes in physician numbers, undergraduate enrollments, and residency positions also have broad implications for the activities of medical schools and their affiliated teaching hospitals. For these reasons medical schools are and will remain essential elements in solutions of current issues and problems facing the health care sector.
Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Alberta.
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Watanabe
D002170:Canada; D004501:Education, Medical; D010820:Physicians / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D012577:Schools, Medical; D012941:Social Responsibility