Dr. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, president of the American Medical Association, highlighted a doctor shortage crisis during a speech at the National Press Club in fall 2023.
“Imagine walking into an emergency room in your moment of crisis — in desperate need of a physician’s care — and finding no one there to take care of you,” he said.
A worsening doctor shortage in the U.S. is causing gaps in care across the country. Rural communities, which rely heavily on telemedicine, are most vulnerable. The shortage also directly affects medical schools nationwide, which rely on physicians to teach and mentor future doctors.
With demand for licensed physicians at an all-time high — and projected to be significantly higher by 2034, largely due to a growing and aging population — many observers wonder if admitting more students into medical schools will address the scarcity. Some say yes, but the complexities and demands of an effective medical school education present an uphill battle.
Not Enough Doctors or Med School Seats
In January 2024, there were just above 1.1 million professionally active doctors in the U.S., according to Statista, a worldwide data and business intelligence platform. And tens of thousands of those licensed physicians spend more time teaching, in research or in administrative roles than in patient care, according to the American Medical Association. Per the National Association of Community Health Centers, the physician shortage means 30% of Americans don’t have a regular primary care doctor.
That’s also a problem for medical schools: In short, you need doctors to make doctors. A shortage of them limits the number of mentors, teachers and attending physicians — for clinical hours — to engage with medical students. This is a consideration when increasing enrollment at medical schools, which number fewer than 200 in terms of accreditation to grant an M.D. or doctor of osteopathic medicine degree in the U.S.
[Read: How Hard Is Medical School and What Is the Med School Curriculum?]
A. Dexter Samuels, executive director of the Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, echoes concerns. Admitting more students would disrupt the ratio of faculty to students, he says.
For every med student, a slot should be available for training in a hospital setting. The doctor shortage can’t accommodate an increase in the number of students, Samuels says, and “hypercompetitiveness of recruiting and retaining faculty” is an ongoing challenge.
Already, fewer than half of all applicants to U.S. med schools are accepted each year, with the average hopeful applying to multiple schools.
Solving the doctor shortage in the U.S. will take more than just increasing the number of spots available in medical school, says Dr. Amy Waer, dean of Texas A&M University’s School of Medicine. That’s because there’s a bottleneck between medical school and graduate medical education — that is, residencies and fellowships — also known as GME.
[How Long Is Medical School and What Is It Like?]
“While many medical schools would like to increase their admission numbers, finding appropriate clinical training sites and physician faculty are limiting factors, particularly for community-based medical schools like Texas A&M,” Waer wrote in an email.
Per the Association of American Medical Colleges, residency slots and clinical training sites haven’t kept pace with growing medical school enrollments — and without residency training, graduating doctors can’t be licensed to treat patients. Experts say the shortfall is largely due to a congressionally imposed cap on federal support for GME through the Medicare program, in place since 1997.
How Medical Schools Are Responding
Enrollment in M.D.-granting medical schools has grown steadily from 92,626 during the 2019-2020 school year to 97,903 in 2023-2024, according to AAMC data. That’s up significantly from 69,718 med school students in 2002, per the AAMC.
However, the increases are unlikely to fully address the scarcity of doctors predicted through 2034. The class sizes, enrollment and number of medical schools are “not growing fast enough to meet the demand for physicians’ services and health care across the nation,” Ehrenfeld says.
New medical schools are opening, aiming to produce more doctors. They will also benefit their surrounding communities, Ehrenfeld says.
“Schools have different missions and different goals they are trying to achieve,” he says. “As there continue to be innovative solutions around medical education and meeting those demands, we will see more campuses and more schools trying to align the needs of the community with the mission of the program.”
[READ: 5 Key Characteristics of Successful Medical School Applicants.]
This deliberate approach to opening new medical schools can help address the doctor shortage and improve quality of life for their local communities. For example, Texas A&M created the A&M Rural and Community Health Institute to reduce health care disparities in the region.
“Texas A&M’s medical school is creating innovative partnerships with communities — particularly for underserved rural communities — to consider the expansion of residency placements and programs,” Waer says.
The doctor shortage in the U.S. will be solved in time, some experts predict. While increasing the number of medical schools and expanding enrollment will help address the shortage, they say, it will take more doctors choosing careers in teaching and mentoring to solve the problem.
Searching for a medical school? Get our complete rankings of Best Medical Schools.
More from U.S. News
Primary Care vs. Research: Which Med School Is Right for You?
Where Famous Doctors Went to Medical School
The Medical School Admissions Cycle: A Month-by-Month Guide
Why It’s Still Hard to Get Into Medical School Despite a Doctor Shortage originally appeared on usnews.com
