Medical-School Applications and Enrollments Hit Record High This Year By Katherine Mangan [Updated (10/24/2013, 5:56 p.m.) with comment from the American Medical Student Association.] The number of students applying to and enrolling in the nations 141 accredited medical schools reached an all-time high this fall, according to figures released on Thursday by the Association of American Medical Colleges. While thats welcome news to educators concerned about a looming physician shortage, the continuing growth threatens to worsen a bottleneck that is developing as newly minted doctors compete for a frozen number of training slots. The number of government-supported residency positions, where medical-school graduates spend three to seven years training in a hospital or clinic with more-experienced doctors before they can practice independently, has been capped since 1997, and despite years of intense lobbying by medical and student groups, Congress has been unwilling to lift the cap. Opponents of lifting the cap cite the cost as well as the possibility that the increasing competition could persuade more American-educated doctors to choose primary-care residencies that face the biggest shortages. Those slots now often go to foreign-educated doctors while American-educated graduates are more likely to compete for better-paying specialties. The American Medical Student Association, a lobbying group, supports lifting the residency cap, but only after the number of graduates of allopathic and osteopathic schools exceeds the number of slots available. One of our concerns about lifting it prematurely is that it could promote a brain drain in which more graduates from overseas come here for training and remain here instead of going back to their countries where theyre needed, said the associations president, Nida F. Degesys. Meanwhile, enrollment is also booming in the nations 30 osteopathic medical colleges, where about one in five medical students gets a start, according to numbers released on Wednesday by the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. By 2017 the number of students enrolling in allopathic and osteopathic medical schools will approach 28,500, the number of currently available first-year residency positions. When they graduate, they will compete for training slots with foreign medical-school graduates and Americans who studied abroad, many of them at medical schools in the Caribbean. While the vast majority of doctors trained in the United States land residency positions, some do not, particularly those seeking popular specialty positions. That is an unnerving possibility for students who graduate, on average, with $175,000 in debt. There Arent Doctors on a Shelf In 2006 the AAMC called on medical schools to increase enrollments by 30 percent over the next decade to avert a predicted shortage of about 90,000 physicians. Were on track to reach that goal in 2017, but heres the rub, Darrell G. Kirch, the medical-college associations president, said during a news conference on Thursday. Unless we have a corresponding increase in residency positions, growing numbers of medical-school graduates wont be able to become fully trained physicians and the resulting shortage will be a crisis for our nation, he said. With the advent of health-care reform under the Affordable Care Act, were finally on track to move another 32 million Americans under the health-insurance umbrella, and at the same time 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day, Dr. Kirch said. The demand this places on our health-care system is incredible. There arent doctors on a shelf we can just roll out. We need to start training them now. The numbers released on Thursday are encouraging, he said. The number of applicants increased by 6.1 percent, to around 48,000, exceeding the previous record, set in 1996. First-year enrollment was up by 3 percent this year, topping 20,000 for the first time. About half of the overall enrollment increase was due to the four new medical schools that opened this year. Women made up 47 percent of enrollees, and the number of first-time female applicants rose by 6.9 percent this year. Among osteopathic schools, enrollment jumped 11.1 percent this year and has nearly doubled over the last decade, to more than 22,000. Most of this years growth came from the three new osteopathic colleges that accepted their first classes this fall. The osteopathic associations president, Stephen C. Shannon, said in a written statement that osteopathic physicians, who take a holistic approach to patient care, will help alleviate projected shortages in primary care, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 13:05:14 +0000