804 Projection of medical specialists in the Health Sector Mexico by 2030. A method to make projections about requirements and plan their training Germán Fajardo-Dolci 1 and Javier Santacruz-Varela 2 1 Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM); 2 Department of Family Medicine, Postgraduate Studies Division, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM, Ciudad de México, Mexico Gac Med Mex. 2017;153:804-819 Contents available at PubMed www.gacetamedicademexico.com Abstract Objective: Carry out the projection of medical specialists in the Health Sector Mexico by 2030. Methods: A predictive approach was developed to project the number of medical specialists by 2030, according to a trend, a desired goal and two convention- al scenarios of increased demand for health services. The methodology was developed based on the General Framework to Assess the Future Supply and Demand of Health Personnel, published in 2013 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and a mathematical model and a software were designed to make projections about the number of specialists. Results: According to the trend, between 2013 and 2030, the number of specialists will be increased by 90,554 to 124,558 and the rate will be change of 77/100.000 population to 91/100,000 population. If is necessary to achieve a goal of 120/100,000, will be necessary to train 40,420 additional specialists to the trend number and if the demand for services increases 15% or 30%, will require further training specialists 65,166 and 89,913, respectively. Conclusions: Even with the trend increase, in the 2030 Mexico will not achieve the desired goal of 126/100,000 population, that the OECD countries had in 2011. The results of the projections made, can help to planning the training of specialists in the medium term. KEY WORDS: Medical specialists planning. Training of health workers. Predictive methodologies. Date of reception: 18-10-2016 Date of acceptance: 05-12-2016 DOI://dx.doi.org/10.24875/GMM.M18000083 GACETA MÉDICA DE MÉXICO SPECIAL ARTICLE Introduction Ensuring opportune access to health services is one of the main goals of healthcare policies of the countries, and to achieve it, it is necessary having health personnel in sufficient numbers and type. One recurrent problem in health systems operation is the lack of medical personnel to provide services at the required places and moments, which is often due to failures in the definition of policies to plan healthcare personnel, or in their implementation. The conse- quences of inadequate medical personnel training are known: scarcity negatively affects medical care provi- sion to people, and excessive job offer contributes to these health professionals’ unemployment 1,2 . The purpose of medical specialists planning is to generate sufficient supply to address the population demand of specialized medical services. Some coun- tries have used predictive methods to plan the number of specialists required in the mid- and long-term, as well as to estimate the number that would be required to be trained according to different scenarios and working hypotheses 3-11 . The planning of medical specialists, and of health- care personnel in general, is a complex process that, in addition to requiring appropriate methods, has to take the policies and regulations that set the stan- dards for training and professional practice into ac- count 12-14 . In some countries, such as Canada, the training of medical specialists is consistent with Correspondence: Javier Santacruz-Varela E-mail: Santacr45@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced or photocopying without the prior written permission of the publisher. © Permanyer 2018