The number of primary care physicians, however, will be roughly in balance with what's needed, he wrote in the July 20 Journal of the American Medical Association. His study was commissioned by the Council on Graduate Medical Education, whose primary mission is to ensure the adequacy of the U.S. physician workforce. Health reform proposals call for expanding HMOs. It will be more difficult for a specialist to have a lucrative private practice in the suburbs. Physicians may spend more time with each patient, and more specialists may shift to small cities and rural areas.
Some specialists oppose that idea, however.
They say that the market should dictate the physician workforce, just as it dictates other professions. Though Johns Hopkins is widely regarded for excellence in its specialty programs, Dean Michael Johns notes that more than half of Hopkins's internal medicine residents and just under half of its pediatrics residents practice primary care following training. He expects to continue training specialists, however. Our role is as a pre-eminent research and specialty medicine institution. We need to continue to do that, as well as to provide a fertile place for students who want to pursue generalism.