So we would solve the scarcity problem 10-12 years in the future.

Currently, for every person accepted by medical school, there are approximately 2 people with almost identical grades/scores who are rejected. This suggests we could roughly triple the supply of doctors if we put effort into training more.

I wasn't suggesting that relaxing restrictions wouldn't help because it would take 10 years to see the effects. I was suggesting that there are other significant obstacles to recruiting people into the medical profession besides accreditation.

Consider also that if you tripled the number of doctors, supply/demand says doctors will make less money, making the prospect of suffering through 10-12 years of training (and N years of low-wage work) less attractive.

Again, medical care should be less lucrative for providers, and I agree that we should make it easier to become doctors. I just think that the long-term scalable solution for this problem has to involve more than just doctors. It only takes 4-6 years to become a nurse practitioner.

Remove the requirement of a bachelor's degree for acceptance into medical school. Integrate anything they see as necessary into the medical program itself. That's 4 years of their life they can have back.

I had a friend that went to a prestigious European medical school for a 6-year program right out of high school. Is he any less qualified as a doctor than someone that spent twice as long to get to the same point?

Or compromise and make the students prove themselves for 2 years before being accepted into the med program. 8 years, they're done and "well rounded".

"It's extremely expensive, in time and dollars, to become a doctor; it takes 10-12 years."

If there were a large increase in medical schools, wouldn't the competition drive the price down?

It would also help if people could receive a greater range of medical treatment from trained professionals who were not full-blown doctors.