title: Great expectations: the 21st century health workforce.
abstract: Health workforce studies have mostly predicted an oversupply of physicians, a shortage of primary care doctors, and an excess of specialists. As the target date of many of these studies is now passed, it is clear that we are evolving into a shortage of physicians, especially specialists, and that primary care will increasingly be done by nonphysician clinicians. The "knowledge society" requires a different workforce than that predicted by most health planners.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, 167 Burnett-Womack Clinical Science Bldg., University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7050, USA. gsheldon@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: George F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Sheldon
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005544:Forecasting; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D006280:Health Workforce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000639:trends; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010820:Physicians / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000639:trends; D014481:United States