The medical profession in Germany: past trends, current state and future prospects.

In conclusion, the shortage of doctors can be described as a pincer movement. The German medical profession is both superannuated and faces difficulty recruiting new young doctors. The shortage of doctors in Germany is thus not caused by a mass exodus of those already working in the system but by the reluctance of young doctors to work in curative medicine. This shortage of doctors is already apparent in the statistics. Last year the number of doctors active in ambulatory medicine dropped in the areas of four State Medical Associations (Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt). Moreover, in Saxony-Anhalt the number of the hospital doctors also declined so that this state was faced with a 1.1% fall in the number of working doctors. The Saarland also recorded a fall in the number of active hospital doctors. The conclusion must be that the standard conditions for doctors must be made more attractive so that young people take more interest in curative medicine. If this does not happen, there will be bottlenecks in the supply of medical care on a broad front in Germany. In the end, the provision of medical care for the population as a whole could be jeopardised.