The Extent of the Need for Physicians
It has been said that in America the number of doctors, in proportion to the number of people, is greater than in any other country. A recent study shows that there were in the United States 151,132 practicing physicians and surgeons, 16,920 students in medical schools, and 6,955 instructors in medical schools. Before the European war the supply of physicians in the United States was large—so large, in fact, that the income of physicians was being materially affected thereby. As a result of the war, however, new fields of practice will be opening up for American physicians in other countries, because of the fact that many physicians in those countries were either killed or disabled, and also because students have not been graduating from the medical schools in those countries during the past few years. It is said that it will take five or six years to develop or to train a new group of physicians in England, France, and in other warring nations.