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发帖数: 2279 | 1 Finding funds for medical residency slots seen as critical to address doctor
shortage
Published: Thursday, October 07, 2010, 9:57 AM
Updated: Thursday, October 07, 2010, 10:22 AM
Mark Sanchez | Business Review West Michigan
Peter Coggan, president and CEO of Grand Rapids Medical Education Partners.
Share 0 Comments As Michigan State University and other medical schools
significantly expand their capacity to train doctors, a bottleneck now
occurs in the system when it’s time for graduates to pursue their residency.
Federal funding to pay for medical residencies at hospitals and physician
practices remains frozen.
Barring action by Congress, and with the physician shortage worsening
throughout Michigan and the nation, Peter Coggan says communities need to
step up to ensure an ample supply of doctors in the future.
“If we’re going to expand our residency programs to meet the needs of the
region, as we should, we’re going to have to find local funds,” said
Coggan, president and CEO of Grand Rapids Medical Education Partners, which
coordinates the placement of medical residents in the region.
MSU’s expansion of the College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids will
double the school’s capacity. Coupled with the expansion of MSU’s College
of Osteopathic Medicine in the Detroit area, plus new medical schools
planned by Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Central Michigan
University in Mt. Pleasant and Oakland University in Rochester, the capacity
for medical education in Michigan will double. That will require a
corresponding increase in residency slots, Coggan said.
Local funding for graduate medical-education slots generates a “great
return on investment” because it increases residency positions and the
chances of retaining more doctors to practice medicine locally, Coggan said.
“You get the kids out there, and they like the experience, and they like
the community,” Coggan said. “So it’s a great way to recruit more
physicians back into the community. But, without an increase in the number
of residency spots, it will not be possible to accommodate all of them in
the state, and we may lose some of them, as we currently do, to other states
.”
The Michigan State Medical Society in 2006 estimated the state would
experience a shortage of 2,400 physicians by 2015, and 4,500 by 2020.
Coggan, a former physician, joined GRMEP as CEO in 2007. He spoke recently
with Business Review's Health Monthly.
What effects will the physician shortage have on health care in West
Michigan?
I think the major stress is going to be in primary care. We know today that
we don’t have enough primary care physicians in the region to meet people’
s needs, and yet we have a new heath care program coming in (under federal
reform) that will really require the availability of more primary care
physicians to provide for the need that’s being created.
And, I think, it’s much more than a physician issue. Even if we were to
expand on primary-care residencies to the maximum possible, we’re not going
to be able to meet the projected need, so we need to work closely with the
physician-assistant programs and the nurse-practitioner programs to put
together teams of providers that will be able to provide the access that
will be necessary.
What are some things that can occur to minimize the shortage or reverse the
trend we’re seeing?
First of all, good estimates to what is needed. Secondly, a really good
picture geographically of where the providers will be needed, and then work
back through the programs that will graduate people and professionals who
can practice in that kind of setting.
A second component is to develop teaching sites that are out there in areas
that will need providers, so students and residents can actually learn in
that setting and hopefully will like the community they are working in, and
will maybe go into practice in that kind of community, or at the very least
leave the experience understanding what the needs of the community are so
that they can be more responsive in whatever practice they do get into.
How has the relocation and expansion of MSU’s College of Human Medicine
affected the ability of Grand Rapids to recruit and retain physicians?
That’s the story that’s unfolding. We don’t know the compete answer to it
yet.
My prediction is it’s going to have an enormous impact on the ability of
this community to recruit talent to the health profession in almost every
way.
Just focusing on the area I know something about — last year, with all of
the activity going on in Grand Rapids, we had a substantial increase in
interest from medical students graduating from U.S. medical schools in our
residency programs. And, because of that, we had the best match that this
organization has had in history. So we did extremely well in the match.
We are expecting that that trend is going to continue over the next few
years.
With the federal freeze on funding for graduate medical education, do
providers and hospitals need to step up more to support it?
They’re one source of support and the most likely, but hospital budgets are
being stretched these days, so coming up with hospital dollars is becoming
more and more difficult.
We need to look for funding sources within the state to support the
expansion of GME. One of the sources of funding is going to be the hospitals
. In general, they feel it’s a good investment on their part to facilitate
physician training because there’s a long-term payoff.
You can also make a case for tapping into philanthropy in the community, but
, if you think of the cost of each residency position being $100,000 a year,
the kind of endowment that you need going forward to spin off the funds to
support a training program is really very large. | S******9
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