Mayo clinic - Physician shortage, doctor shortage - Addressing The Gnawing Issue of Primary Care Shortages

I notice the Obama budget addresses the issue of dwindling numbers of primary care physicians by offering up to $330 million to expand repayment of education loans to to doctors, nurses, and dentists who agree to practice in medically underserved areas.

To which, I say,

Get real. Medical students will not enter primary care in greater numbers until they perceive they will receive the same pay, prestige, work hours, and choice of desirable practice locations as their classmates who choose to go into specialties. Loan repayments to primary care for serving in doctor-short areas will simply not cut it. The time has come, as the Walrus might have said in Alice in Wonderland, to talk of other things.