Where Do Doctors Work? Medical School Access and the Rural Physician Shortage
Abstract
How does the geographic distribution of medical schools spill over into the distribution of doctors? Using comprehensive physician listings from the American Medical Directory, I find that medical school location has a moderate effect on practice location. This has implications for addressing the rural physician shortage. Individual-level estimates also provide suggestive evidence that admitting more rural students is a viable policy lever to alleviate the rural physician shortage.
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Adam H. Shumway
Economist
I’m an economist at the US Census Bureau. I conduct disclosure avoidance review for Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs) and research synthetic data and differential privacy. I am a trained labor economist with interests in historic data and occupational licensing. My dissertation used physician directories from the past 100 years to study the rural physician shortage.