USA projects shortage of over 120000 additional doctors in the next decade.

New Jersey State has begun issuing emergency temporary medical licenses 

to foreign doctors to deal with the acute shortage of doctors on account of

this Pandemic which among other things brought to light the severe shortage much quicker.

Certainly it seems history repeats itself.

In 1970 Nixon passed the law letting foreign doctors with exchange visa to

apply for green card because of the terrible shortage of doctors all over USA.

Most of our alumni who settled here were the beneficiaries of that law.

I couldn't help being reminded of where I have been by reading this article.

So that's the way life history is made, and

"that's the way it is."

We can not tell if the Coronavirus pandemic will be an annual occurrence from 2021.

There may not be any pandemic of a similar nature for the next 4-5 years. No one knows.

Looking back our history, a real bad pandemic came once every 100 years. (2020, 1920, and 1820)

The earth had a few other pandemics in the past but none of them recurred every year.

It may be too early to decide how many doctors we will need next year.

Also. we actually need more people who will do the dirty jobs that doctors will not do.

Do you get it?? Do you know what I mean?

The general medical expense ("Price" in an economic sense) depends on the "supply and demand".

In the case of the number of doctors, this normal "supply and demand" principle does not apply.

More doctor means more medical expense. It doesn't get cheaper by adding more doctors.

(However, adding more nurses or technicians "may" get the medical expense cheaper.)

We got to be very careful in increasing the number of doctors.

My feeling is that we increase the number of medical assistants such as nurses, nurse's aid,

medical technicians, and etc.

In my past, I used to be the only doctor in a big E.R. but with plenty of help of paramedical personnel,

I and the E.R. did pretty well. Here, extra medical doctors might not have made much difference.

Instead of getting more doctors, we should train more paramedical assistants and civilian volunteers.

Even a non-medical civilian can do a very satisfactory job when given a well-defined job

with some quick training. This may be an easier and more efficient way of handling severe epidemics.

I see your point well, and so does the medical industry, I believe.

We now have PAs everywhere in the hospital and in doctors' offices.

RNs in the hospital do the things interns and residents used to do.

All those paramedical professionals, I believe, are growing in numbers

all over the country when you see the job numbers of service industry 

in regular government reports. 

To illustrate your point further Medicare has shown for yrs that wherever doctors are 

concentrated, medical cost per capita is high. For example, Boston area medical cost

is much higher than any city in Texas or Minnesota. The same holds true among states.

In spite of all that, they are projecting the severe shortage of doctors in coming years

chiefly because, as I understood, for years medical schools have shrunk class sizes,

and the large number of resident positions have been eliminated although the old age

population has been growing.

Sometime ago I read the analysis of the situation in the formal report by AMA somewhere,

as I recall.

I see many foreign graduate primary care physicians in the community. I also see much more nurse 

practitioners in primary care doctors offices. I think this is because md's are shy away from less money 

making specialities. The money goes to the specialities that do procedures. Md's chase the money. 
American graduates will compete fiercely to get residencies of the procedure oriented specialities that are

well paid. Foreign graduates will fill up the less paid unpopular residency slots.

In the mean time nurse practitioners, PA's, physical therapists, nurse anesthetists will replace MD's. Physicians 

has been given the privileges that can monopolize patient's care. In reality a lot of it could be done with others 

who are trained properly without going through medical school. As doctors raise the cost of health care by working 

hard to generate more income unethically, non-physician health care workers are increasingly attractive to the 

government that are watching the rising health care cost.