Filling the doctor shortage in Oklahoma will take just what it’s going to take to fill the shortage all across the country, increased output from medical schools and active recruitment that begins with the very young.

A report released last week stated Oklahoma needed a 30 percent increase in the number of doctors in the next 15 years to meet increased health demands. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, that means the addition of more than 400 family physicians in the state, from the current 1,463 to 1,896 in 2020.

A nationwide report last year indicated the United States needed to train 3,000 to 10,000 more physicians a year — up from the current 25,000 — to meet growing medical needs in our aging, wealthy nation. It predicted the country will have a shortage of 85,000 to 200,000 doctors in 2020 unless something was done soon.

Of course, medical schools will have to increase their output, but we can’t assume that young people will be drawn to the field. Like many professions, the art of medicine has lost some of its luster in recent years due to on-the-job demands and declining income.

Doctors are coming out of medical school with an average debt of more than $120,000, according to a June report from the American Medical Association. The association also states overhead expenses in a physician’s office takes two-thirds of its revenue, which includes ever-increasing liability insurance.

And finally, the AMA reported that cuts in Medicare reimbursements and decreased payments from managed care companies are cutting into physician salaries.

A negative for physician recruitment, too, is the fact that doctors are isolated from the everyday life of their patients in today’s highly specialized medical world. Doctors have offices in large medical complexes today, as opposed to yesteryears’ community and neighborhood offices. Physician interaction and visibility, therefore, is limited to crises, and the crises that demand physicians are more limited than in the past. Today, minor emergency care, such as immunizations and checkups are more likely provided in a county health department than in a doctor’s office.

We can’t count on television series to entice young people into careers in medicine, much less to give a realistic portrayal of the life of physicians and nurses.

The medical professions will have to do what other professions are doing, going to schools and convincing children to consider a career in medicine. Hospitals and care companies will have to extend recruitment activities. They will not only have to find ways to entice doctors who are leaving medical school into joining their enterprises, but they also must get out and encourage young people into going into medical school.

“The Medicare physician payment system is broken. Physicians face drastic Medicare payments cuts of about 40 percent over the next nine years, while costs increase about 20 percent. These cuts follow five years of payment updates that have not kept pace with medical practice cost increases. Current payment rates about the same as they were in 2001.”

— AMA Board Chair Cecil Wilson, MD