Consequences of an Oversupply of Specialists

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Abstract
DURING the past 15 years, there has been a large increase in the number of active physicians in the United States. Between 1965 and 1980, a 55.8% increase occurred, which represented a change in physician density from 140 to 195 per 100,000 population.1Large increases also occurred among nonphysician health professionals. In the years ahead, further large increases in the number of health professionals in the United States may be expected, as medical students and postgraduate trainees enter practice. A number of factors are likely to increase the demand for physicians' services during the next few decades, such as the growth and aging of the population and improvements in health technology and changes in the ways medical care is organized and financed, among others. However, a consensus is emerging that by the year 2000, the supply of physicians will be in substantial excess of requirements in the United States. The

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