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Tue 27 Oct, 2009 10:56 pm
Does "159,000 fewer doctors" mean " 'present mumber - 159,000' ?
Context:
For providers, the crisis is equally grim. Impending workforce shortages, excessive volume-based purchasing, rising costs, and unpredictable Medicare payments all plague our system. Just last month, the Association of American Medical Colleges released findings indicating that 15 years from now the United States will have 159,000 fewer doctors than we need. Although there are shortages in nearly every field of medicine, primary care physicians are in particularly short supply. With the heavy burden of medical school loans, which averaged more than $150,000 per medical school graduate in 2008,3 recruiting new physicians will be a challenge in years to come.
Quote:Just last month, the Association of American Medical Colleges released findings indicating that 15 years from now the United States will have 159,000 fewer doctors than we need.
Quote:Does "159,000 fewer doctors" mean " 'present mumber - 159,000' ?
No, it doesn't reference the number of doctors who are practicing in the US currently. It means that fifteen years from now, there will be a certain number of doctors required to effectively treat all the people in the US and whatever that number is - we will not have that many - in fact we will have 159,000 fewer doctors than whatever that number is.
If you wrote it as an equation it would look like this:
how many doctors we'll need - how many doctors we'll have= 159,000
Thanks.
I wrote it as an equation, so you'd have given me a YES.
Of course I'd have labeled it "equation" to avoid misunderstanding.
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