Jessica L. O'Hara
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released new data Tuesday, October 20, 2009, that shows a continued enrollment increase at US medical schools. First-year enrollment increased by 2% over 2008 enrollment to approximately 18,400 students. Despite this effort to meet the nation’s need for the expansion of the physician workforce, a concurrent increase in the number of graduate medical education (GME) positions is still necessary to accommodate the growing number of medical school graduates and fully address the nation’s physician shortage.
Four new US medical schools—Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Commonwealth Medical College, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, and the University of Central Florida College of Medicine—admitted their first entering class this year, which accounts for half of the 2 % enrollment increase in 2009. Twelve existing medical schools expanded their 2009 class size by 7% or more.
In addition, data show that the number of male enrollees topped the number of female enrollees in the 2009 entering class by 52% to 48%, respectively. However, the number of women attending medical school has continued to steadily increase since 1992. The number of African American applicants has also increased by 4% over 2008 numbers, and the 2009 entering class had the largest number of African American enrollees since 1999. Charts fully detailing 2009 medical school expansion and enrollment are available.
In the AAMC press release, AAMC President Darrell Kirch, MD, noted that despite the expansion in medical school enrollment, an increase in GME slots is also needed to avert the physician shortage. “We must also increase the number of residency training slots to prevent a bottleneck in the pipeline of new physician, and ensure access to care for the millions of Americans who hopefully will attain coverage under health care reform,” said Dr. Kirch.
The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2009 (S 973/ HR 2251) is currently the only health care reform proposal that increases GME positions to address the projected physician workforce shortage. The bill includes a major tenet of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine consensus statement on the physician workforce, which recommends strategically increasing the number of Medicare-funded positions for primary care specialties to adequately meet the nation’s health care needs and ensure new primary care slots are added in geographic areas of demonstrated need.
Please contact your members of Congress to ask them to cosponsor the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2009 and push for its inclusion in any piece of health care reform legislation. Find contact information for your representative and senators at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. You can also recruit additional cosponsors through the AAMC website.