I came across some amazing statistics. Last year the American Bar Association reported that US law schools graduated 40,000 new attorneys. In the same year, the number of graduating physicians from US medical schools remained the same at 16,000. This means for every new doctor there are over 2 new lawyers. 70% percent of the world's attorneys practice in the US but we have only 5% of the worlds population. There are 1,130,000 practicing attorneys in the United States in 2008 and 805,000 MDs, 24% of the MDs are foreign graduates. (The good news is that several new medical schools are opening up and it is hoped that we will be able to increase the number of US med school grads to 20,000/year within the next 8 years. There are over twice as many new law schools opening up!.) 36% of House of Representativess and 53% of the Senate are trial lawyers. 25 presidents were attorneys. Less than 1% of the House and Senate are physicians. Physicians have almost twice the suicide rate of the general population.
Scary stuff!
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6 comments:
You've been tagged. C,mon come out to play. :)
I know plenty of wonderful folks that chose law over medicine for one simple reason - law school is only three years. I know that is a factor in # of doctors v. # of lawyers. Some folks would rather start their careers sooner.
I agree the numbers are a sad reflection - but as an attorney, with my friends who were interested in both, I think it is purely an economic or quality of life decision.
Lauren -your legal medicine blog is informative, look forward to reading it and I have blogrolled you! My elderly mother recently became a permanent resident in a nursing home.
Merry Christmas Throckmorton :)
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