
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993                   TAG: 9307280130
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. HEALTH OFFICIAL: TOO MANY DOCTORS

The United States has too many doctors, not just too many specialists, and should consider restricting the number of residencies to train new ones, a top federal health official said Tuesday.

Dr. Philip R. Lee, the new assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, said there has been "a very dramatic increase in the last five years" in the numbers of foreign-trained doctors doing their residencies here.

There are 80,000 physicians in residencies or fellowships. Lee said the number of those slots is 35 percent higher than the number occupied by graduates of U.S. medical schools.

Specialists outnumber generalists among the 600,000 practicing U.S. physicians more than 2-to-1 and the imbalance is growing. White House officials have said they hope to redress that by changing federal subsidies for graduate medical education.

Lee, a top academic researcher and administrator from the University of California at San Francisco, said he is convinced that "we have too many" physicians, not just the wrong types.

- Associated Press

by CNB