Idaho is facing an increasing healthcare crisis.  In addition to the state nursing shortage, experts say more doctors are needed to keep up with a growing population - especially family doctors.

Idaho is already way behind other states when it comes to numbers of doctors, but with a booming population - health officials say we need to start playing catch up.

Idaho has the fewest doctors per capita of any state with around 140 for every 100,000 residents, with family doctors suffering from the biggest shortage. 

“If you can't see one of those guys, you're seeing a sub-specialist,” Dr. Gary Krouth, St. Luke's Chief Medical Officer said. “(A) Cardiologist, who isn't designed to take care of diabetes and so on.  So you end up exacerbating the problem.”

The shortage, according to Krouth, stem from lack of resources in the state.

“Idaho is still kind of not on the map,” he said. “It's not the west or east coast.  We don't have a medical school and we don't have a lot of residency programs and a lot of doctors when they finish kind of stay where they finally trained and not where they grew up.”

That lack of resources translates into problems for patients who desperately need a doctor...

“Call around town and find out when you can be seen and you're going to find 3, 4, 5 months.  It's not uncommon,” Krouth said. “And you're 66 years old with hypertension and diabetes. How can you wait?”

Krouth says more medical students are choosing specialized fields like a cardiologist over becoming a family doctor....partly due to higher income..

“Specialists make two ,three and four times what a primary care physician makes,” Krouth said.

But also because of lifestyle.

“You have to be able to control your life, and it's really hard to control your life in primary care,” he said.

Krouth said there are some solutions to the shortage crisis - which include increasing opportunities for residency programs....reserving more seats for students from Idaho in out of state medical schools, and increasing funding and awareness of the issue.

“The state has to invest money; the public has to say it's important and get educated to it,” Krouth said.

There are only about 30 reserved seats for Idaho students at both the University of Utah and the University of Washington medical schools combined.

Krouth says it's conceivable that Idaho could get a medical school, but you have to have enough population to provide a patient base and the only area in the state where that's possible is southwestern Idaho.