The Doctor Shortage: An Economic Diagnosis

One of the basic distinctions which Fein makes in the first chapter of his monograph on the physician shortage is that measuring the supply of physicians is one thing and measuring the supply of physician's services is quite another. From this distinction he derives the hypothesis that increasing the number of physicians is not necessarily the best solution to the current manpower problem. The remaining four chapters test this hypothesis by defining the terms of the physician manpower controversy, summarizing past arguments, and placing the manpower problem in a meaningful context of demand and supply. Various factors of demand are considered. These include population growth; age, sex, and color distribution; urbanization trends; education and income trends; quality of care; and medicare. Analysis of these factors yields a projected increase in the demand for physicians' services of 22% to 26% and a 35% to 40% increase by 1980. The discussion of