The Evolution of the Physician’s Role

employed in the United States. Some workforce experts believe there is a physician oversupply, arguing that allopathic, osteopathic, and international medical graduates are all competing for limited practice opportunities in the managed care setting.1 Other experts have advo-cated the expansion of US medical school positions, claiming that physician demand has not lessened despite a perceived oversupply.2 Yet others continue to hold that a “maldistribution ” of physicians into urban and suburban areas, rather than rural and inner-city regions, is the root of the problem.3 Recent data suggest that this practice dis-parity, the target of primary care initiatives in many medical schools, has not closed, and may even have widened.4 Whatever the outcome of the physician workforce debate, physi-cians will face a changing landscape of clinical practice roles as well as increased availability of alternate career options. Some medical gradu-ates are choosing to reject traditional clinical roles altogether. In thi