We are over-specialized

Unless primary care providers are better acknowledged for their work and valued as highly as specialists, medical students will find no incentive to choose specialty care. Ditto to everyone elses comments on the competitive and over striving mentality of medical students- they are galvanized to push their academic career further by specializing for higher pay, gradiosity, financial security, etc. Focusing on a specialty is attached to prestige, higher pay, and a more challenging career. Primary care providers are indeed over worked. They deal with a higher volume of patients, burdened with more paper work, and are held with the responsibility of a comprehensive and wholistic outlook on the patient. Sad to say, the role of the family physician is quite crucial for preventative medicine and the overall health of a person, yet their salaries are staggeringly lower compared to specialty doctors. Like teachers and social workers who are over-worked and under paid, primary care providers too are in the same boat- they are seeking to be regarded as vital professionals of society who care for the population but are recognized with less value. With less medical students entering into primary care, I have heard that is one of the reasons why physician assistant and nurse practitioner programs are being offered in universities and colleges. Thus, PA's and NP's can share the responsibility of providing primary health care for large populations who do not have family doctors. What is ironic with that solution is that PA students are allowed to specialize as well! They can specialize in surgery, dermatology, OB/GYN.... we are over-specialized.