Graduate Medical Education and Physician Workforce Shortage
Ensuring a Well-Trained Physician Workforce. Increase Federally Funded Physician Training Programs
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Background
Rationale
The Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions, in its 2008 report, projected a need for 16,000 urologists by 2020. This is congruent with other independent projections that show that by 2030 urology will face a 32 percent deficiency in the number of providers necessary to adequately care for a projected population of 364 million U.S. citizens. A recent American Urological Association (AUA) Workforce and Compensation Survey indicated that up to 20 percent of currently practicing urologists plan to retire in the next five to ten years. We must take steps now to ensure a fully trained specialty physician workforce for the future.