The United States will need approximately 52,000 new primary-care doctors as the population grows and ages.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimated back in 2012 that the United States will be short of more than 91,000 doctors by 2020 — 45,000 in primary care and 46,000 in surgery and medical specialties. The estimation is becoming true as Congress is not acting and residency positions still remain almost unchanged from last year.

IMGs play an important role in US Healthcare system. Currently, one-quarter of all physicians practicing in the United States and 10% to 15% of trainees in residency programs are IMGs. But by 2015, the number of graduates from US medical schools is expected to surpass the number of positions in residency programs. Going with the trend of preference by US Residency Programs given to US Seniors, it will become quite difficult for IMGs to get into US GME Programs.

Congress has a number of bills in discussion two of them are listed below to increase the residency positions to overcome this shortage but none of them have yet been passed by Congress and show very poor prognosis by the government tracking website.

  1. H.R. 1201: Training Tomorrow’s Doctors Today Act
  2. H.R. 1180: Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013

AAMC made a great video to elaborate this visually, have a look at the video.