Experts foresee doctor shortage
By Frank Lee • fclee@stcloudtimes.com • July 26, 2009
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Aging baby boomers, retiring doctors, the high cost of medical school and the possibility of universal health care will soon create a shortage of primary-care physicians, some experts believe.
“We are facing a shortage, particularly of family medicine physicians and internists,” said Dr. Daniel Whitlock, vice president of medical affairs at St. Cloud Hospital.
Primary-care physicians in Minnesota also include pediatricians and obstetricians, according to Dr. Allen Horn, president of CentraCare Clinic, a physician-led, multispecialty group with more than 180 physicians at nine sites in six Central Minnesota communities.
“A lot of doctors are in the baby boomer generation, so we are going to have more and more physicians retiring in the years to come,” Horn said.
Dr. Toby Christie-Perkins graduated from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and recently started his residency at St. Cloud Hospital. Not including the cost of his undergraduate education, his medical school debt is $210,000.
“I think the cost of medical school is a big reason why there is a shortage no w; medical school is very expensive — hundreds of thousands of dollars — and coming out of medical school with that kind of debt is pretty daunting and trying to pay that off is difficult,” he said.
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According to recently released U.S. census estimates, the number of senior citizens has jumped 23 percent since 2000 to 516 million.
By 2030, the number of baby boomers will double from 35 million to 71 million; yet, since 1980, the number of first-year enrollees in U.S. medical schools per 100,000 people has declined annually, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“There are a number of patients who I have talked to who are quite upset that they couldn’t be seen (quickly), and they just say to me, ‘Why don’t you just recruit some more doctors?’ But they don’t grow on trees, and so I think there is a growing awareness of the impact,” Horn said.
“CentraCare Clinic has the only internal medicine doctors in St. Cloud outside of the VA, but we have not had a candidate for internal medicine for over three years. We’ve been recruiting during that time, but we haven’t been able to get a candidate to come to St. Cloud,” Horn said.
