NORFOLK, Va. — The physician shortage is considered a serious issue that local leaders say will take "all hands on deck" to solve. Those leaders, medical professionals and patient advocates held a round table discussion Friday to find solutions.
The Association of American Medical Colleges expects the U.S. will be short up to 86,000 physicians by 2036 — with much of that in primary care.
"You'll probably know if you're a patient coming up to get a primary physician the wait is three to six months to see somebody. So access becomes really significant. And access is exemplified on the under served community," explained Dr. Alfred Abuhamad, executive vice president at Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University, Dean of Eastern Virginia Medical School. "So our most under served communities will be really impacted the most with the physician shortages we see coming up in the future."
Watch: No luck finding a primary care doctor in Hampton Roads? You're not alone.
"The number of folks who spend literally months waiting to get a doctor's appointment just doesn't make any sense in the richest country in the world," added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia.
Sen. Warner, Virginia State Senator Aaron Rouse (D-District 22), medical professionals and patient advocates talked about the why.
"The population requires much more healthcare than exists today and the chronic illnesses that exist in the population today with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and others are going on at an exponential increase not matched with the increase of healthcare providers that we produce with our education," said Dr. Abuhamad.
Watch: Sentara Health to take on more resident physicians to address shortage
They said it's sick and aging populations that require more complex care, physician burnout, and doctors opting for specialties that pay more than primary care.
"I said, how much is your student debt? It was half a million dollars," commented one panelist who said young doctors wanted to quickly pay those debts back.
Some, like Dr. Anna Peoples who owns a pharmacy in Norfolk, said they've been adjusting for when the primary care doctor isn't in.
"What we're doing in pharmacy now is that we are having to remodel ourselves. We're having to reinvent ourselves and we're actually doing a lot of things now and filling the gaps of what physicians normally do. We do things like chronic care management, we actually do wellness visits," Dr. Peoples told the group.
Others said they've been connecting with patients outside the doctor's office. They're teaching people to be proactive with health and wellness, meeting them where they're at, and working with trusted community voices.
Watch: Primary care physicians in short supply across Hampton Roads
"We're working with the faith community, we're doing assessments, we're doing cancer screenings," explained another panelist.
They want to expand on those ideas and find other solutions too.
"Maybe you don't need to see the doc, maybe your pharmacist can help you or your nurse practitioner, but we also have to expand the universe, our medical schools, we have to help them produce more physicians and we have to realize in an aging society like ours we need to use technology in a more efficient way," said Sen. Warner. "This was about healthcare providers, doctors yes, but also all the way up and down the healthcare delivery system."
"Coming together in one room is really a promising first start to help us in addressing the future," said Dr. Alfred Abuhamad.
Solutions won't come overnight, so doctors added the best thing you can do if you're waiting on an appointment is be patient.