Consequences of an Oversupply of Medical Specialists: The Case of Neurology

Abstract

In recent years, evidence has been accumulating that an oversupply of practicing physicians, especially in some specialties, will become more severe in the next decade as the medical students and postgraduate trainees already in the pipeline complete their education and enter practice.¹ Along with an oversupply, a geographic maldistribution of many groups of specialists has been recognized, and a consensus is emerging that would seek a more rational allocation of manpower, so that segments of the population that are currently underserved might receive needed care.² Schwartz³ and Newhouse⁴ and their colleagues have studied the diffusion of physicians by community size . . .