Shortage of Physicians: A Critical Review.

A recent report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) points out an insufficient number of physicians in Europe. The issue seems especially relevant in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this review, based on papers found in the PubMed database, we drew on the available information on the aspects of medical education and terms and rate of employment of physicians to submit potential solutions of how to increase the availability of physicians in Europe. We offer the following improvements in tackling the issue: (i) standardization of the method of verification of the number of physicians in practice for a meaningful comparison between European states; (ii) managerial reorganization of medical education to increase the flexibility of teaching; (iii) education shortening, e.g., to 4 years, for nurses, paramedics, and the like; (iv) circumscription of unnecessary health records and the use of artificial intelligence to streamline the recording system to ease the burden on the medical staff.