The role of medical education, research funding and the market in balancing physician supply

Since the 1960s, the topic of balancing physician supply has been researched extensively by the government, medical organizations and a host of other constituencies with an interest in healthcare workforce supply and demand. In the 1960s, published studies reported that the nation was facing a serious undersupply of physicians; thus, the government responded by increasing medical school enrollment, the number of schools and funding for medical education. By the 1980s, it was apparent that an undersupply had been transformed into an oversupply. Once again, steps were taken to address an oversupply, characterized by specialty and geographic maldistributions. These steps have not been successful. Compounding the disparity in the percentage of specialists versus primary care physicians is a changing healthcare marketplace that favors generalist care.;In this paper, an examination of published literature on topics of physician supply and how they relate to medical education is presented. Accompanying the literature review is a study to determine if a relationship exists between the amount of federal research funding a medical school receives from the NIH and its percentage of primary care graduates. Throughout the years, research funding has been a major revenue stream for medical schools. Has it affected the percentage of primary care graduates medical schools have produced? Analysis of the current literature and findings of the study are discussed and recommendations and conclusions are made about research funding and medical education's role in physician supply.