The Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) is an advisory group of physicians, academics and other health care experts that was commissioned by Congress in 1986 to assess trends in the physician workforce. COGME recently announced that it is supporting a study conducted by the Center for Workforce Studies at the State University of New York, Albany that predicts a shortage of up to 96,000 physicians by 2020.

This represents a complete reversal for COGME, which for years has projected a surplus of doctors in the U.S. Indeed, as recently as 1994, COGME predicted that there would be 130,000 too many physicians in the U.S. by the year 2000. Now, however, COGME endorses the view of the Center for Workforce Studies report calling for a 15% increase in the number of medical school graduates by 2015 and the creation of additional residency positions. The goal is to increase the number of students entering medical school by 3,000 over the next dozen years and to increase the number of residency positions by the same number in the same time frame.

Executives at national physician search firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, who have been vocal in their criticism of COGME's previous projections of a physician surplus, indicated they were pleased that the advisory group has changed course.

"Anyone charged with recruiting physicians over the last ten years understands that no surplus ever existed," notes Kurt Mosley, Vice President of Business Development for Merritt, Hawkins & Associates. "We are glad that what is common knowledge at the 'street level' has filtered up to the academic level."

Nevertheless, Mosley notes that any changes in the number of physicians being trained will take years to have an effect.

"The physician shortage will be a fact of life for years, even if COGME's recommendations are acted on," Mosley says. "There is simply too big a gap now between the demand for physicians and the available supply."