[Scandinavian world record in physician manpower]

If Denmark, Finland, and Sweden continue to train new doctors at the same rate as they do now, these countries will stand a good chance of holding the world record in the doctor-patient ratio before the year 2000. Then, around 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, they will pass the milestones of 20, 30, and 40 doctors per 10,000 population. This means a two-fold increase in the number of doctors in 20 years, the number of doctors in the three countries increasing by between 50 and 100 per cent in the 1970s. In Scandinavia as a whole, there would in the year 2000 be about 95,000 doctors serving a population of just under 24,000,000. What does the situation look like in the global perspective? Calculating optimistically with "only" a twofold increase in the world population over the 30-year period 1970-2000, there would be a need of: 2,000,000 more doctors just to maintain the doctor/patient ratio of 1970, i.e. 7.9 doctors per 10,000 population, a ratio that Finland exceeded in the early sixties; 4,200,000 more doctors so as to keep up the same increase as in the 1960s. End result: 12 doctors per 10,000 population in the year 2000, a level that Iceland, Norway, and Sweden reached in the mid sixties -- in Denmark the doctor-patient ratio was then 14 per 10,000 population. It is most realistic, however, to count on an increase of 3,300,000 doctors in 30 years, which will mean a total number of 10.5 doctors per 10,000 population in the year 2000.