Question: What is the state of medical education and training for doctors, especially the number of doctors being trained each year by medical schools and the class sizes?
From: Jeans C. of Dallas, TX

Answer: In researching the information to your question, I also learned some interesting facts. Two helpful sources included The National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). For the 2007-08 entering class, U.S. medical schools received 546,817 applications from 42,315 applicants. 51.0% were men and 49.0% were women. This was a slight decrease in the percentage of female applicants from 2003-04 but was actually an increase in the number of female applicants. In an AAMC release in March, 2007, the NRMP reported that greater than 15,000 medical school seniors applied for residency matches to hospitals. This was an increase of 200 from the previous year. The number of available residency positions was also the highest in match history. 27,944 applicants applied for 21,845 1st year residency positions. 15,206 applicants were U.S. medical school seniors. The remainder included previous graduates, osteopathic graduates, and international students. The increase in medical school debt has outpaced inflation. The median debt burden for public medical school graduates is $119,000. It is $150,000 from private medical institutions. On the other hand, the starting income levels for physicians have increased slowly. In recent years, there has been a decline in the percentage of graduates choosing family medicine or primary care. This may be due to the comparatively lower starting incomes, the availability of nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and the utilization of hospitalists in inpatient settings. Subspecialties are on the rise, however.