The national defense program, which contemplates the training of
an army of 1,400,000 men, will require, according to the
statement made by Major Swift before the Senate Committee on
Military Affairs, from seven to eight thousand reserve medical
officers for each of the next three or four years. Assuming, as
it does, that 50 per cent of the reserve medical officers would
remain on active duty at the end of each year, there would be in
1944 some three thousand fewer available than the army would
require unless additional recruits are secured for the Medical
Officers Reserve Corps. In the accompanying table are shown for
each of the past six years the number of graduates from the
approved medical schools of the United States and the number of
physicians licensed for the first time (representing actual
additions to the profession). The number of medical graduates
has remained nearly constant. The