650. The Doctor Won’t See You Now

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 (heinz.cmu.edu/faculty-research/profiles/clay-k…), professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Rochelle Walensky (hks.harvard.edu/about/rochelle-walensky-md-mph), physician-scientist and former director of the CDC.

• RESOURCES:• "Medical School Closures, Market Adjustment, and Mortality in the Flexner Report Era (nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33937/w3…)," 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 (nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp2414572)," 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 (nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr2412784)," by Rochelle Walensky and Nicole McCann (New England Journal of Medicine, 2025).
• "The first step to addressing the physician shortage (statnews.com/2025/01/15/physician-shortage-gme…)," by Rochelle Walensky and Nicole McCann (STAT, 2025).
• "Physician Workforce: Projections, 2022-2037 (bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bureau-health…)," (National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, 2024).
• “Projected Estimates of African American Medical Graduates of Closed Historically Black Medical Schools (jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fulla…),” by Kendall Campbell, Irma Corral, Jhojana Infante Linares, and Dmitry Tumin (JAMA Network, 2020).
• "Medical Education in the United States and Canada (ia803109.us.archive.org/32/items/carnegieflexn…)," by Abraham Flexner (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1910).

• EXTRAS:• "Is the Air Traffic Control System Broken? (freakonomics.com/is-the-air-traffic-control-sy…)" series by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
• "Are You Ready for the Elder Swell? (freakonomics.com/podcast/are-you-ready-for-the…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
• "Are Private Equity Firms Plundering the U.S. Economy? (freakonomics.com/podcast/are-private-equity-fi…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

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