By SUHANA MISHRA
Residing in the often overlooked San Joaquin Valley, I’ve personally felt the impact of the shortage of primary care physicians. My family struggled to access basic medical attention for common illnesses like the flu. Getting local doctor appointments wasn’t just difficult—it often meant resorting to urgent care or driving long distances for simple treatments. Non-emergency issues that could have been resolved with accessible primary care instead overwhelmed urgent care centers, which often had long wait times and suboptimal conditions. These firsthand experiences revealed just how critical primary care access is for our community. They also sparked my passion for change. Leading a HOSA community service campaign on California’s physician shortage gave me a clearer view of the systemic nature of the issue—and fueled my determination to seek long-term solutions.
California, despite being a hub of innovation, faces a severe and growing deficit in primary care access. Nowhere is this more apparent than in regions like the San Joaquin Valley. Long travel distances, physician burnout, and systemic neglect manifest in community-wide health decline. A UCSF study reported that only two regions in California meet the federally recommended threshold of 60–80 primary care physicians per 100,000 residents. The San Joaquin Valley, predictably, falls far below this benchmark.
While programs like the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program attempt to incentivize doctors to practice in underserved areas, the impact is limited. According to CapRadio, a third of California’s doctors are over 55 and nearing retirement. CalMatters estimates that by 2030, the state will be short more than 10,000 primary care physicians. The implications are dire—not only for logistics and care delivery, but also for the long-term health outcomes of Californians.
When patients face barriers to consistent care, chronic conditions go unmanaged.
Preventive screenings are skipped. Communities lose trust in the very systems designed to keep them healthy. A 2022 study from Patient Engagement HIT showed that individuals in areas with the lowest concentration of primary care providers had a 37% higher risk of hypertension than those in well-served communities. These statistics are not just numbers—they represent real lives.
This growing gap is further widened by a decline in the number of medical students pursuing primary care. Only 36% of graduates enter the field, and those who do often prefer practicing in urban areas with better infrastructure and specialist networks. The result? Existing doctors in underserved regions burn out from overwhelming demand. In a survey by the California Health Care Foundation, 68% of physicians said they would choose a different specialty if they could start over—largely due to stress and burnout. Furthermore, many rural communities lack nearby medical schools, exacerbating geographic imbalances in where new doctors choose to train and eventually work. In the Coachella Valley, for instance, the nearest medical school is 75 miles away, according to the Healthforce Center at UCSF.
We can’t fix the crisis by focusing on incentives alone—we must start earlier. My experience with HOSA revealed how few students even know this shortage exists. Educational programs like Project Lead The Way (PLTW) and HOSA have the potential to bridge this gap by exposing students to healthcare early and empowering them to choose primary care. By building awareness and engagement at the high school and community college levels, we can begin to shift the narrative. Future physicians need to understand that their choice of specialty has a broader societal impact. When students see the direct connection between healthcare access and community wellbeing—especially in regions like ours—they are more likely to feel personally called to make a difference.
Medical schools must also be part of the solution. More programs should prioritize primary care training, especially with an emphasis on rural and underserved placements. Scholarships, mentorship, and longitudinal clinical experiences in these areas can help shape more equitable distribution of the physician workforce. Addressing this issue requires not only policy change but a cultural shift in how we value and promote primary care careers.
Behind every statistic about physician shortages are people who drive miles for basic appointments or spend hours waiting in urgent care for conditions that should have been handled locally. These aren’t just gaps in the system—they’re moments where trust in healthcare is lost. Solutions must do more than shuffle numbers; they must restore that trust. That means valuing primary care not as an afterthought but as the heartbeat of public health. It means elevating the voices of community health workers who already carry so much of the load, and it means giving students hands-on experiences in underserved areas so they feel the pull to return. If we can align policy with lived experience—pairing scholarships and training with grassroots engagement—then we can rebuild a system that feels human again. Equity doesn’t come from data tables alone; it comes from making sure no community has to wonder whether care is truly within reach.
Suhana Mishra is a high school researcher and public health advocate from California’s Central Valley.
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