Imagine that you are the owner of a retail store that's struggling to survive. You decide to conduct a stupendous blowout Saturday sale. You run your ad in the Star-Telegram. The customers are lined up around the block waiting for you to open.

But -- you didn't hire enough sales staff to handle the sale. Your solution: Allow one or two customers in at a time because that's all you can serve. The others have to wait outside -- probably for hours.

Gee, do you think some of those in line will leave out of frustration?

This seemingly ridiculous scenario describes life at the Texas Medical Board these days.

After Texans voted in 2003 to pass Proposition 12 to limit doctors' medical liability, the state became a popular destination for out-of-state physicians. License applications increased from about 2,500 in 2003 to more than 4,000 in 2006.

Budget constraints prohibited the board from increasing staff to handle the influx of applications. Now it takes an average of nine to 11 months to license and credential physicians in Texas, compared to three to four weeks in Oklahoma, according to the Texas Hospital Association.

Adding to this silliness is that this is a profitable enterprise for the state. Only about a third of the $450 licensing fee goes toward processing the application. The rest gets funneled into general revenue.

How many store owners would simply look at crowds of potential customers and say, "Oh, when I get around to it ..."?

The THA recently requested an emergency $348,000 appropriation from the governor's office for licensing board staff and equipment to break this inexcusable bottleneck. Gov. Rick Perry moved the request on to the necessary legislative channels. If the issue receives the immediate attention it deserves, the Legislature could approve emergency funding by late March or early April.

Any delay in granting this request only compounds the travesty.

Texas has about 43,000 physicians to treat 23 million people, ranking 45th in the nation in physicians per 100,000 residents, according to the Texas Medical Association.

As of January 2005, 130 Texas counties were primary-care "Health Professional Shortage Areas." Another 64 counties were partial-county HPSAs. Thus, 194 Texas counties -- or more than 75 percent -- lacked an adequate supply of primary-care physicians. In 2004, 26 counties -- primarily along the border in West and South Texas -- had no primary-care physicians.

If this shortage is not enough, consider the economic development impact of hastening the process.

As THA President Dan Stultz points out, imagine a company wanting to relocate to Texas with 1,500 jobs paying $250,000 each. That company would be lavished with tax incentives and welcomed with red carpet treatment rather than bureaucratic red tape.

Still, those would-be doctors are knocking on the state's door and getting a red-tape welcome. Each of them probably would create another five nursing and office staff jobs.

Texas cannot afford to allow these valuable assets to languish or perhaps drift away to another state because of such foolish shortsightedness. State lawmakers must fast-track this emergency funding request.