US has oversupply of doctors

The US has far too many doctors, and immediate steps must be taken to cut the number of junior doctors, said a committee from the Institute of Medicine last week. The institute, in Washington DC, is a non-profit making organisation that provides health policy advice under a charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences.

“In the past two decades the number of physicians has grown one and a half times the rate of the general population, increasing from 150 per 100000 people in 1970 to 245 in 1992,” …