Well hey.. I gotta get paid.

Yes.. there is a shortage of PCP's in America and yes medical students might be more willing to specialize and sub-specialize to earn more money or have a more prestigious occupation (if being a general physician wasn't enough). but in all honesty there are medical students who truly have a passion for a specialization of some sort and they may be more gifted in that field. It would be unfair to put stipulations on how many medical students are allowed to specialize. The truth is that in order to specialize a medical student must excel in their board exams. Those who are given the opportunity to be resident specialists have earned the right through years and years of hard work. No matter what their motivation may be, (i.e. higher status, better pay, or a true passion for a particular specialty) they have rightfully made their way to that position. So there is a lot of competition that effectively weeds out less qualified individuals. With that being said, it seems that there is and will be in the future, a shortage of primary care physicians.

So what does this do to our system? There is definitely potential that some folks in America will be deprived of quality care from a general practitioner. The scary thing is that there is a shortage of PCP's and the ones that are there often times practice in the same areas- which effectively leaves a lot of people with few or no options for seeing a doctor. In some instances, they may be forced to travel several miles to see a doctor for a general check-up- many people may elect to not even go see a doctor in those situations. That is a serious problem, I think. But I do think that there are "solutions" to this shortage of PCP's. Many medical schools have the option that medical students can obtain federal grants that will essentially pay for their medical school on the condition that the medical students practices a few years in an inner city area as a PCP. Certainly this is a huge motivation for a student- I think this is a great way to increase the number of PCP's in America.