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BY SUSAN ERLER
serler@nwitimes.com
219.548.4349 | Sunday, August 17, 2008 | (3 comment(s))
Parts of Indiana already may be feeling the pain of a doctor shortage expected to hit the nation in the coming years.
"We are already seeing this," said Heidi Dunniway, president of the Indianapolis Medical Society.
In a couple of rural Indiana counties, there are no doctors specialized in delivering deliver babies, Dunniway said.
"Lacking anyone doing obstetrics, women are having to drive to a different county to deliver their babies," she said.
Some analysts in the field predict the problem will only get worse.
An Indiana University School of Medicine task force predicted in a 2006 report that Indiana faces a shortage of 1,975 doctors by 2015 if more physicians are not educated.
The university assembled the task force in 2005 as concern grew over national projections of future physician shortages.
The Council on Graduate Medical Education concluded in 2005 that the U.S. might face a shortage of from 85,000 to 96,000 physicians by 2020.
To help meet projected shortages, Indiana University School of Medicine, like other medical schools across the nation, plans to increase enrollment by 30 percent, contributing an additional 360 new physicians to the profession by the time the class of 2016 graduates.
The Association of American Medical Colleges has called for a 30 percent increase in enrollments at medical schools to add almost 5,000 additional medical students each year.
Two decades earlier, experts who believed managed health care and other factors would create a surplus of doctors called for measures to slow the number of new doctors entering the profession.
Current projections take into account an expected increase in U.S. population, along with a burgeoning aging population arriving at the same time physician supply dwindles as doctors reach retirement age or choose to cut back on work hours.
"What's happening is that physicians are aging like the rest of the baby boomers," Dunniway said. "It's going to hit right at the time baby boomers need the most physicians."
Rural and inner-city areas, which tend to attract fewer doctors, are expected to be the areas hardest hit, Dunniway said.
The IU medical school expansion hopes to target those two areas by funding physician residencies in the areas with the greatest need.
"Statistics show that 50 percent of doctors who train in a particular area will stay there," Dunniway said.
Indiana and other parts of the Midwest are home to a number of both inner-city and rural areas, setting the region apart from other parts of the country, she said.
"It's a double whammy you don't see in other states," Dunniway said.
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Former Regionite wrote on Aug 19, 2008 10:08 AM:
thats what you get wrote on Aug 17, 2008 7:22 AM:
Increasing lawsuits with high premiums of 10s of thousands of dollars forced out many ob/gyns.
Now Obama wants universal healthcare. I'm telling you now folks. If you think there is a shortage of docs now, just wait. Why do you think people from other countries come here? There is greater access to healthcare. But if you go to government mandated heathcare there will be no incentive for our best and brightest to go into the medical field.
Instead of someone sitting in an office somewhere making your medical decisions, it will be someone sitting in the whitehouse.
Think before you vote! "
Peter wrote on Aug 17, 2008 12:26 AM: