America doesn’t need more medical students. It needs more residents

Earlier this month, fourth-year medical students around the country learned news that will shape the rest of their careers. Match Day, as it’s known, is when aspiring physicians learn where they will complete their training in residency.

Last year, about 53,000 applicants vied for roughly 44,000 residency positions. Some of those who failed to match in this first round will find a spot through a supplemental round. But still, thousands of medical students will find themselves locked out of residency.

That’s a strange outcome for a country facing a growing doctor shortage. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States could be short as many as 86,000 physicians by 2036. 

The bottleneck is not medical school. It’s residency.

The shortage of residency slots is in part the result of federal policy. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 capped the number of Medicare-funded residency positions, and Congress has only modestly increased that