BI - Law-school grads are bombing the bar, and it's a sign of trouble for legal education

[bluebayou]

Here you go cranky, a good article which discusses the doc issues.

Medical schools are graduating more doctors, but the flow of medical school graduates has not been aligned to available training slots. The gap has left hundreds of fourth-year medical students without the training spots they need to become full-fledged practitioners.

This cap on training spots is stablished by Congress.

Med school graduates who fail to find a match end up in a kind of professional no man’s land. They can apply for one of the approximately 1,000 positions that are not filled in the official matching process, apply for a research grant or — in the worst case — abandon plans to become a doctor.

Med schools can’t increase much if there is no where for their grads to go. Plus, and this is really important, unlike law school, part of med education is paid directly by the feds. The fed won’t pay for more students than the residency cap allows.

Medical groups have argued that such a measure could help fill a projected shortfall of 130,000 physicians by 2025, as more Americans sign up for Medicare and become eligible for medical care under newly mandated health insurance coverage.

Officially, the AMA is on record for increasing the numbers of resident slots (paid for by Congress). Indeed, it has been their official policy for nearly 15 years. (you can look it up.)

http://fortune.com/2013/04/01/medical-students-confront-a-residency-black-hole/

Law school is nothing like this. The University of Phoenix can hire adjuncts and open a law school. In certain states like California, law schools don’t even need to be ABA-approved for their students to sit for the bar. LA’s former mayor, (and likely future governor hopeful), graduated from People’s. At least its relatively cheap since their students are ineligible for federal loans.

http://www.peoplescollegeoflaw.edu

Happy Holidays to you and yours!