Recent reporting from Nevada makes something painfully clear: the primary care shortage is no longer a future concern. It is already shaping people’s lives. Patients wait weeks or months for appointments, travel farther for basic care, or go without care altogether. Clinicians who remain are stretched thin, carrying more responsibility with less time, fewer options, and growing administrative pressure
The Primary Care Shortage Is About More Than Numbers
What’s striking is that the primary care shortage isn’t only about workforce counts. It is also about constraints. Even when clinicians notice early warning signs—a change in symptoms, a rising concern, a quiet sense that something isn’t right—they often lack the time, flexibility, or authorization to act.
Insurance rules, visit limits, documentation demands, and productivity pressures can all intervene between noticing a signal and responding to it.
Delayed Care and Moral Strain
For patients, these constraints show up as delayed care, fragmented conversations, and a sense that no one is holding the whole picture. For clinicians, they create moral strain: being trained and ethically committed to act in a patient’s best interest, yet repeatedly encountering barriers that prevent timely, attentive care.
When Systems Stop Listening
This moment invites us to look beyond workforce statistics. It asks how modern health systems listen—or fail to listen—to early signals, and what is lost when care is rushed, constrained, or pushed farther from daily life.
A My28Days® Reflection Cycle
Days 1–7: Noticing
Noticing where care feels rushed. Noticing how often appointments are delayed or shortened. Noticing how many steps stand between a concern and a response.
Days 8–14: Listening for Strain
Listening for strain beneath the surface—in clinicians, patients, and systems.
Days 15–21: Seeing Patterns
Recognizing repeated structures where responsibility exists but authority does not.
Days 22–28: Holding What We’ve Seen
Holding what we’ve noticed without rushing to answers.
You do not have to solve anything today.
In a system overwhelmed by complexity, simply noticing is enough.
Read the Las Vegas Sun column:
My28Days.org is an educational and advocacy platform supported by the Mary Elizabeth Conover Foundation. For more information or to lend support, contact Office@ConoverFoundation.org
