Shortage of Physicians in the Rural America. Health, Medicine, Nursing (Research Paper Sample)

Shortage of Physicians in the Rural AmericaStudent’s NameInstitutional Affiliation
Introduction
Problem Statement
It is apparent that there is shortage of physicians practicing within the rural communities of the US. The shortage is more pronounced in minority groups and women physicians. As Burrows et al. (2012) points, 20 percent of the American population live in the rural areas, yet only 11 percent of the total US physician workforce work among this population. Having identified the problem earlier in 2005, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) attempted to increase medical school enrolment by up to 15 percent in 15 years. Unfortunately increasing the medical students’ enrolment rate does not guarantee increase in the number of physicians that will practice in the rural areas.
AAMC projected a general shortage of 124,000 full-time physicians by 2025 in the US, majority of which is anticipated to be in the rural areas. On the hand, the Council of Graduate Medical Education projected that US could experience a shortage of up to 85000 physicians by 2020, majority of which will be experienced in the rural areas. Given such anticipated physician workforce shortages, the impacts in the rural areas are more likely to be dramatic in future. Burrows (2012)’s survey revealed that the ration of physicians to population in the urban areas ranged about 136 percent higher than the ratio in the rural communities. Such figures suggests continued disproportionality of physician practitioners in the rural America, with the distribution even more inconsistent in the remote rural areas. The significant disparity needs to be addressed to narrow the gap in healthcare delivery.
Despite the limitation in availability of findings in the current study topic and the context of North Carolina (Fraher et al., 2018), the limited available research suggests that several factors influence career choices or specialty and practicing locations for physicians. Some of these factors include the medical school experience, residency programs, and compensation. Specifically, the current study focusses on the curriculum of medical students as a key factor that influence choice of whether medical students are willing to practice in rural areas, and if that curriculum includes instruction on rural healthcare. The study will therefore seek to answer the following research question;