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Mar 02, 2005
USA Today
The United States stopped opening medical schools in the 1980s because of the predicted surplus of doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges dropped this long-standing view in 2002 with the statement: "It now appears that those predictions may be in error." Last month, it recommended increasing the number of U.S. medical students by 15%. Florida State University's College of Medicine, the first new medical school since 1982, will graduate its first class this year. Florida State won approval from the state Legislature to become the nation's 126th medical school by emphasizing family practice and other specialties needed in rural areas and inner cities, where the doctor shortage is already acute. Florida State medical student Shannon Price, 34, plans to return to her hometown of Perry, when she becomes an obstetrician in 2010. She knows first-hand how having too few doctors hurts Perry.