Buckeye Surgeon returns with a post about the primary care shortage. He likens the situation to a little-league baseball team, saying that someone has to do the dirty work:

But not everyone can be the shortstop. You can’t have 9 starting pitchers. Somebody has to be the catcher. Somebody has to trudge out to the lonely post in right field. Otherwise, your team will get crushed. Similarly, we have all these medical students who want to be dermatologists and radiologists and plastic surgeons. Well guess what? We need more right fielders in medicine. We need more motivated medical students who want to throw themselves into primary care and general surgery.

Somewhat of a heavy-handed solution. If some students are forced to become primary care physicians without changing the underlying problems belaying the profession, you’ll simply get less students applying for medical school.

Mandating students to go into an unsatisfying field will lead to unhappy primary care doctors. Is that really going to solve the problem?