After completing years of schooling, followed by a grueling residency program, medical students seek the financial payoff for all of their hard-work (and a way to start repaying their debt) And how can you blame them?
Personally, I think that one of the benefits of becoming a primary care physician is the unique relationships you build with each patient. However, medical students who find this quality important to them, find that they can also develop a repore with their patients by choosing to specialize, not to mention, make more money. Doctors who specialize in something have a rewarding career that provides better financial rewards.
I think that in order to increase the number of primary care doctors, a lot more incentives need to be offered to them. There should also be a better system to address/fix the administrative inefficiencies (i.e. billing system). If primary care physicians were better compensated, then they would be more satisfied with their jobs, which would be one way to help influence medical students into primary care.
A relevant article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Primary Care- The Best Job in Medicine?" for those that are interested: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/9/864
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