Edward S. Salsberg, director of the Association of American Medical Collegesâ?? Center for Workforce Studies, says he has seen some evidence of medical schools taking in fewer first-year students or slowing their planned growth rates. “Itâ??s up to the individual schools to make decisions that work for them,” he says. Public medical schools “have to go to their state legislatures to get support and we know state budgets arenâ??t in good condition in most states. “For the medical establishment, tight budgets and enrollment cuts couldnâ??t have come at a worse time. The Council on Graduate Medical Education estimated in 2005 that the United States would face a shortage of 85,000 to 96,000 physicians by 2020 unless medical schools were able to increase the number of new M.D.â??s they graduate each year by several thousand. Other groups, too, project a physician shortage or at least the need to draw physicians to underserved regions and toward practicing high-demand specialties such as internal medicine and geriatrics.
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