Ann Weaver Hart, President of the University of Arizona outlines the basics of the GME Crisis and offers a solution
“Our nation is facing a crisis in healthcare. As the baby boom generation ages, as more Americans become insured, and as the national population expands, the country will need more doctors to provide the high quality and low cost healthcare that we all deserve. In fact, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. will have a shortage of 130,600 physicians by 2025, and the need is even more acute with primary care physicians. Without expansion of Graduate Medical Education programs and redistribution of the proportions of specialists and primary care doctors trained in those programs, many Americans will be unable to afford high quality healthcare.
Graduate Medical Education (GME) is the period, after four years of medical school, required for supervised development of the necessary skills, experience, knowledge, and attitude that allows a resident MD to mature into an independent and effective clinician. Programs are most often organized as part of academic medical centers, where teaching hospitals partner with medical colleges.
Academic medical centers are generally better positioned than other hospitals to run GME programs, especially in terms of cost. Teaching hospitals do recover some cost through revenue from clinical services, but it does not offset the cost of GME programs. As such, Medicare is the primary source of GME funding.” — Ann Weaver Hart
In her most recent blog post, President Hart shares a call to action and a way to address this critical challenge which includes
- The Challenges to GME Expansion
- Innovating a Solution
- Nation-Wide Need, State-Specific Solutions