Hi, I'm Murray Feldstein, visiting fellow for
healthcare policy at the Goldwater Institute.
The Covid-19 pandemic is stressing our 
healthcare system to the limit.
It's making the chronic shortage
of healthcare workers even more critical.
In response a number of medical schools
are graduating their senior medical
students early so they can help
participate on the front lines.
Medical training times have been reduced in
previous crises as well.
In World War II
three months were shaved off of each of
three years of postgraduate programs
accelerating by as many as nine months,
the time it took physicians to enter
either civilian or military practice.
There's no evidence that these
physicians practiced any less skillfully
than their traditionally trained colleagues.
The shortage of physicians
that existed before this pandemic is
forecast to get even worse.
The American Association of medical colleges would
predicts we will need more than a
hundred and twenty thousand doctors than
we can train by the Year 2032.
In the United States it takes anywhere from 11
to 15 years after high school for a
medical doctor to enter the full-time
workforce depending on their specialty.
This is a year or two longer than many
other advanced countries. If three months
could be shaved off of medical school
training and added to the nine months
that were safe during World War two
we might be able to gradually an
additional twenty to twenty-five
thousand physicians over a training
cycle. Even more might be gained if pre
medical collegiate training were taken
into consideration as well. Now it may
surprise you to learn that the length of
medical training has been arbitrarily
determined and never has really been
empirically tested for efficiency.
There is no real economic incentive to do so
because of the red tape that holds
current state licensing regimens
together.
If there's any good that can
come out of a tragedy like war or
epidemics, it's that they help us focus
on the common-sense measures that can be
taken to alleviate problems that persist
when the catastrophes are over.
If reducing medical training times can
help alleviate shortages during the
worst of times, then surely they can help
when conditions improve.
We need to seriously reassess the way we license
and train healthcare providers.
Thank you for your continued interest in the
Goldwater Institute's response to the
corona...virus pandemic.
