Assessment of physician human resources in Iran based on the goals of 1st-4th development plans

The aim of this study was assessment and analysis of the status of the sum of physicians and dentists manpower in Iran on the basis of the five-year development plans goals. This study has a descriptive–analytic method، using statistical analysis and documents from the first to the fourth five-year National Development Plan. The population in the study was the total number of physicians and dentists human resources in the country. The analysis was done by the statistical softwares Eviews7 and Excel 2010. The average annual growth rates of the sum of physicians and dentists in the four development plans were 14. 2، 9. 4، 6. 2 and 4. 7%، respectively. The total average annual growth rate in 1360-1388 was 6. 4%. These growth rates along with high annual growth rates in that period showed that in the decision for increasing the number of physicians، the attention should be mainly focused on growth of physician services in the country and reducing shortages of health services in the public sector. There have been three goals for such high growth rates in the development plans، a) increasing accessibility and equity in the distribution of facilities and physician manpower، b) increasing the proportion of physician number per 1000 population، and c) increasing the share of private sector in health service provision. Lack of a plan for balanced growth rates of physician manpower and health facilities for a given level of health services in the last five-year plan could be considered the main problem in future، after reaching the required number of physicians in the country.