From the article, "And, it turns out that most (more than 95 percent) U.S. graduates did match in a residency program." Generally speaking, the U.S. residency program prioritizes and favors physicians graduating from U.S. medical schools.
The 95% number comes when you only look at US med school based candidates. That suggests a much smaller gap between demand and supply.
The rate for an intentional candidate matching into an American program is in the 50% to 60% range. Lots of doctors want to come work in the US, but residency programs simply do not have the capacity to accept them.
Yes. The residency programs are heavily weighted toward and really designed to ensure that every graduate from an American medical school has the ability to enter the residency program. Those to who attend the Caribbean schools or who are trained at a variety of other institutions abroad are given what is left over.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. I don't really mind the federal government giving priority to graduates from American schools. Frankly, the federal government likely gave them the loans to attend, so it helps to get that money paid back, which will only happen if these graduates become attending physicians and residency is a requirement for this to happen. On the other hand, the U.S. denies reciprocity from virtually all physicians from abroad outside of Canada. In order to practice in the U.S., physicians need to repeat their residency in an American program and it can be difficult for them to get a residency in a specialty in which they already practice. This is wasteful and I'd like to see a process to expedite this process as long as we can ensure these incoming physicians understand the American standard of care, which is differs between countries, for better or for worse.
All that said, the U.S. doesn't need more physicians in general. They need more physicians in certain specialties like family practice who want to live in small markets. Simply flooding the market with more physicians won't guarantee that this will happen.
Less than 80% of candidates match into a residency. That means 1 in 5 doctors are blocked from practicing.