The LA Times claimed Match Day 2013 results are good for future internal-medicine patients, stating "America’s future doctors are increasingly interested in become primary-care physicians -- good news for America’s future patients." OBGYN News' claim was my favorite: Primary care spots are hot in largest-ever Match Day.
They are basing this on a few things. First, the actual numbers of US medical student graduates going into primary care fields such as internal medicine have in fact increase. For example, 3,135 students will be going into internal medicine, which is a 19% increase from 2009 and 6.6% increase from last year.
However, the main source of positive news is coming from the NRMP (the folks who do the match) themselves. According to their press release:
Match results can be an indicator of career interests among U.S. medical school seniors. Among the notable
trends this year:
• 3,135 U.S. seniors matched to internal medicine, an increase of 194 over last year.
• 1,837 U.S. seniors matched to pediatrics, an increase of 105 over last year.
• Family medicine matched 1,355 U.S. seniors, 33 more than last year. More than 95
percent of family medicine positions were filled.
Based on these numbers it would seem that more students are choosing careers in primary care. However, this is not the case, and in some instances things are actually worse.
You have to look at the total number of slots as well as the percent that our US students are choosing primary care fields. Below is a table that has the match results for the last three years. It is important to note that there was almost 1000 more US seniors graduating, which according to the NRMP they attribute to the rising number of U.S. students to three new medical schools graduating their first classes as well as enrollment expansions in existing medical schools.
There is virtually no change in student choosing internal medicine from 2011 to 2013 (18.9% to 19.1%). Family medicine, which looked to have a slight bump last year is actually down from 2011 to 2013 (8.35% to 8.26%). Peds is up from last year, but still down from 2011 (11.34% to 11.2%). One also needs to look at how many of the positions that were offered (a major increase from prior years) were filled by graduating US seniors. Internal medicine, which was filled by 57% of US seniors dropped significantly to just below half!. Family dipped from 48% in 2011 to 44.6% in 2013. Peds dropped by 1%.
In other words....
- More residency slots were offered across the board in primary care specialties, but more of these new slots were being filled by non-US graduates, than use graduates
- Despite having three new medical schools worth of graduates, the pool of newly minted primary care physicians isn't really expanding that much
- Our US seniors ARE NOT choosing primary care as a career, and if anything, are choosing primary care slightly less than previously, and certainly not more.
I blogged about this in 2011, when the media seemed to decry a boom for primary care. What I said two years ago is even more true today. This is a crisis. Many of the few primary care docs we have are retiring, leaving practice, or going cash only or retainer. If something is not done to increase the value, reimbursement, and job satisfaction of our primary care doctors; we will have no one left to care for our sick and aging population. (And before you post a comment about NP's and PA's filling this gap, those students aren't going into primary care either. A surgical PA makes more money than a primary care MD).
