The U.S. has a physician shortage, created in part by a century-old reform that shut down bad medical schools. But why haven’t we filled the gap? Why are some physicians so unhappy? And which is worse: a bad doctor or no doctor at all? SOURCES:Karen Clay, professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.Rochelle Walensky, physician-scientist and former director of the CDC. RESOURCES:"Medical School Closures, Market Adjustment, and Mortality in the Flexner Report Era," by Karen Clay, Grant Miller, Margarita Portnykh, and Ethan Schmick (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2025)."Application Overload — A Call to Reduce the Burden of Applying to Medical School," by Rochelle Walensky and Loren Walensky (New England Journal of Medicine, 2025)."Challenges to the Future of a Robust Physician Workforce in the United States," by Rochelle Walensky and Nicole McCann (New England Journal of Medicine, 2025)."The first step to addressing the physician shortage," by Rochelle Walensky and Nicole McCann (STAT, 2025)."Physician Workforce: Projections, 2022-2037," (National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, 2024).“Projected Estimates of African American Medical Graduates of Closed Historically Black Medical Schools,” by Kendall Campbell, Irma Corral, Jhojana Infante Linares, and Dmitry Tumin (JAMA Network, 2020)."Medical Education in the United States and Canada," by Abraham Flexner (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1910). EXTRAS:"Is the Air Traffic Control System Broken?" series by Freakonomics Radio (2025)."Are You Ready for the Elder Swell?" by Freakonomics Radio (2025)."Are Private Equity Firms Plundering the U.S. Economy?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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