The new health care law could contribute to a need for more primary care doctors.
With the new law there appears there will be a need for more doctors on the front line of medical care, those in family practice and pediatrics. However Dr. EldonTrame, a Belleville physician who is head of the Illinois State Medical Society says a big factor is that most doctors veer off into higher paying specialties:
"But only two percent of general internal medicine residents stay into general internal medicine when they get out and that's causing a lot of these shortages."
He advises those who recruit doctors to set up programs which would help family practice physicians pay off their student loans. Traume says he's heard estimates that there will be a need for 90,000 doctors by the year 2020.