Great expectations: the 21st century health workforce

Health workforce studies have mostly predicted an oversupply of physicians, a shortage of primary care doctors, and an excess of specialists. As the target date of many of these studies is now passed, it is clear that we are evolving into a shortage of physicians, especially specialists, and that primary care will increasingly be done by nonphysician clinicians. The “knowledge society” requires a different workforce than that predicted by most health planners.