SaturdayApr11,2020at8:25PMApr11,2020at8:25PM

I read with interest Sen. Durbins op-ed piece in the April 3 edition of the SJ-R, Lessons learned so far on coronavirus. The first of his lessons learned was our country has a critical shortage of doctors. His solution was to create a national policy to increase the number of medical professionals in our nation. He focused the blame on the financial burden necessary to becoming a doctor. He states a doctor, on average, will assume $240,000 of student loan debt. I agree that the cost of education may be a factor but I believe the senator also needs to consider another aspect of this problem: a shortage of medical schools.

Consider that a typical medical school in our country has more than 10,000 applicants for only 50-200 spots. Based on those numbers, an applicant has a 0.5% to 2% chance of acceptance in each school they apply to. If lucky enough to be granted an interview at a school, the prospective student then incurs travel expenses that can amount to thousands of dollars. Many highly qualified and motivated students are willing to incur the incredible amount of debt necessary to realize their dreams of becoming a doctor. This is a problem our country cannot afford to ignore. Our crisis has brought this to the attention of our own state senator. So Im asking you, Sen. Durbin, to move forward with your national policy to increase the number of medical professionals, but do this by increasing the number of our medical schools.

Linda Curtis, Springfield

Read the original here:
Letter: Increase the number of U.S. medical schools - Lincoln Courier