WE will focus on physician shortage for this week’s column.

There is a shortage of physicians, besides registered nurses, in the United States today.

In 11 years, in 2016, when the 79 million baby boomers turn 70, the medical manpower deficit will worsen to a crisis proportion. Since it takes about 10 years to train a physician, the shortage by 2020 will be between 85,000 to 200,000. At least 3,000 to 10,000 more physicians need to be trained each year, in addition to the usual annual 25,000 in training.

An obvious miscalculation, the American Medical Association, governmental manpower agencies, and several industry groups, for the past 25 years, have predicted a glut of medical doctors and endeavored hard to limit the number of new physicians, including “closure of the gates” for foreign medical graduates.

The Journal of the AMA in 1994 confidently warned that there would be a surplus of 165,000 physicians by 2000. Harvard medical professor David Blumenthal, in his article on this dilemma in the New England Journal of Medicine, noted the fallacy of the “oversupply” prediction. It is more than obvious today that the United States is facing a real and increasing shortage of physicians, as well as an acute and dire need for nurses in most, if not all, hospitals in the country. The AMA, and those agencies concerned, have now reversed their stance.

In the mid-80s, there were about half a million physicians in the U.S., a significant number of them foreign medical graduates, more than 2,000 of them from the Philippines. Today, the United States has more than 800,000 physicians, and all of them busy, because the inadequate number of doctors is further reduced with the retirement of many, and is complicated by mal-distribution, which leaves most rural areas in need of specialists. And physicians are now working less hours too, especially older physicians who are slowing down, and women physicians, who work 25 percent shorter hours than their male counterpart, making medical care less accessible. New physicians practically equal those who retire, and baby boom physicians themselves who were licensed since the 60s will soon retire in big numbers. If nothing is done today, the supply will further shrink to an unsafe level and a healthcare delivery crisis will erupt, jeopardizing the health and lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Latest statistics show that training 100,000 medical residents is costing the U.S. Government about $11 billion, or $10,000 per resident. Healthcare costs the country 15.4 percent in 2004, up from 8.8 percent in 1980, and will shoot up to 18.7 percent in 2014.

Because of the miscalculation, the country put a halt to opening more medical schools since the 1980s. Realizing its error now, The Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2002, abandoned its longstanding “glut” theory and recommended increasing the number of medical students by 15 percent. Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada are now contemplating opening additional medical schools, and other states are planning to expand theirs.

In the Philippines, our medical manpower deficit is aggravated by the mal-distribution of physicians, since most physicians opt to practice in major cities in the nation in order to survive, leaving most rural areas doctorless and/or with no specialists. Annually, the medical schools in the Philippines (now 26 of them, way too many for a small country like ours) churn out about 2,000 graduates. Most of them, if given the chance, will surely elect to go abroad, preferably to the United States, “the land of milk and honey,” an infinitely greener pasture. The Philippines is well-respected in the United States as one of the best sources of qualified foreign medical graduates.

Will this insipient crisis in the United States be another window of opportunity for foreign medical graduates, like the shortage in the 60s that led to the establishment of the U.S. Exchange Visitors Program, which siphoned out thousands of our new physicians 45 years ago? Time will tell.

But whatever happens, the good name and reputation the Filipino physician has earned for himself in that half a century providing medical care to the people of the United States, practicing side-by-side with his American peer, will be a glorious and an indelible part of that nation’s healthcare history. I dare say, with tempered modesty and pride, that the people of the United States were the better for it.

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The main objective of this column is to educate and inspire people live a healthier lifestyle to prevent illnesses and disabilities, and achieve a happier and more productive life. Any diagnosis, recommendation or treatment in our column are general medical information and not intended to be applicable or appropriate for anyone. This column is not a substitute for your physician, who knows your condition well and who is your best ally when it comes to your health.