There is no one ratio of physicians to population that can be considered to be the right one in all situations. Demand for medical service varies from one area to another both as to amount and kind. Also, the fact that so much of medicine is practiced by specialists complicates the concept of ratios of physicians to population. Even in an ideal situation it would be expected that people in more sparsely settled areas would have to go to urban centers for the services of physicians who specialize in the less common conditions. Determination of the needs of a particular county for physicians cannot be made without a study of the local situation. However, as a rule of thumb, experience in large medical groups indicates that comprehensive medical care, including both general and specialized services, requires on the average 1 physician for about 1,000 persons. A guide for rating community needs for physicians, prepared in 1953 by the American Medical Association Council on Medical Service, considers more than 1,200 persons per physician to be a major evidence of need. In 1960, one-third of the counties of the United States had more than 2,000 people per physician : Detail by geographic division and State is given in table 1. These figures are based on a count of all active non-Federal physicians (M.D.) in the United States in 1960. Omitted are physicians in military service, Veterans' Administration, and the Public Health Service. Data on osteopathic physicians by county are not available. These figures include general practitioners, specialists, teachers, public health officers, interns, and residents in hospitals, etc. If the figures were limited to family physicians alone (general practitioners, internists, and pediatricians in private practice) the ratios of population to physicians would be substantially higher in most areas. Such information is not available at this time, although it will be available shortly. Table 2 is a listing, by State and county, showing, for 1960, of the number of physicians, the county population, number of physicians per 100,000 population, and the county group. TABLE 1.-Distribution of counties in the United States by number of persons per active non-Federal physician, 1960 TABLE 1.-Distribution of counties in the United States by number of persons per active non-Federal physician, 1960—Continued |