Medical Students Increasingly Spurning Primary Care

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The Baltimore Sun reports: "Ryan Circh's heart is drawn to family medicine, but his head - fixated on his daunting student loans and the uncertainties of health care reform - is leading him toward emergency or sports medicine. The 24-year-old studying medicine at the University of Maryland is probably another potential primary care physician lost. In the school's most recent graduating medical school class, more than a third pursued internal and family medicine." His decision "reflects a nationwide trend, according to the National Resident Matching Program, whose figures show about a third of graduating students are going into primary care, a number that's been dropping fairly steadily over the last generation." Medical students "face a debt approaching $150,000 when they leave medical school" (Rosen, 9/29).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

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