[arcanus]

To first order, if doctors work fewer hours, more doctors will be required to serve the aggregate medical demand.

More doctors working on the same amount of medical demand will be an increased supply of doctors, and so will reduce doctors salaries.

This seems like an ideal outcome for consumers, and I suspect the AMA would lobby against this. But American doctors should also be aware that their famously world class compensation might be reduced with this tradeoff.

[bastawhiz]

I'm not sure there would be such a shortage. Here in North Carolina we have a "shortage" of teachers. But there's tons of folks that are qualified, they just can't afford to live on a teacher's salary and don't want to put up with the politics and bad policies. If the state made teaching a valued profession and paid people what they're worth, they'd instantly fill those vacancies.

My housemate is a nurse specializing in ECMO. In the time I've known him, his salary and benefits have been reduced twice. He'd note at his last job how many people were leaving because the scheduling makes it impossible to take time off and the benefits were paltry and getting worse. Three separate people needed to approve his time off requests for PTO he'd earned.

I would bet good money the same thing would happen in medicine. Pay people what they're worth and give them workable hours and lots of folks who are qualified (or easily recertified) for the positions will come out of the woodwork.

[nradov]

While many years ago the AMA did lobby to limit the supply of doctors they reversed their position and are now lobbying for an increase.

https://savegme.org/

Since demand for healthcare is growing rapidly I expect that doctors will still be well paid even if the AMA succeeds in getting Congress to add more residency program funding, and thereby increase the supply.