Almost 10% of medical school students each year do not get a hospital residency, leaving thousands without the required training to work as physicians and contributing to a growing shortage of doctors in the U.S., medical education professionals say.
“Ultimately, it’s a huge hit to our health care infrastructure,” said Kevin Lynn, founder of Doctors Without Jobs. “We are desperate for our doctors. And here is a cohort of doctors — thousands that want to practice, that need to practice and cannot.”
Douglas Medina, who graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 2011, hasn’t launched a career as a licensed psychiatrist because he hasn’t been able to secure a hospital residency for the past eight years.
In the meantime, he has been working as a per-diem intake clinician at an addiction treatment center in Las Vegas, where he sets up transfers and evaluates walk-in patients.
“Even working this job, there’s no way I could get out of this debt,” said Mr. Medina, who owes more than $470,000 from student loans. “The only way I can get out of debt is if I work a job as a physician.”
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4 comments:
So what do you suppose might happen if we reduced the student visas for foreign medical students by, oh, 15%?
Could our homefolks get the jobs then?
Just askin'...
This has been long in vision . Medicaid and Medicare do not pay any or not enough from care given to support the hospitals and physicians who are training the new physicians.
And there will be a tremendous shortage (already is..) of primary care physicians, especially in rural areas.
Guess why.
Because they have such huge student loan debts that they have to be specialists in larger areas to make enough to pay it off.
Do you like nurse practitioners? I hope so. It will likely be your only option.
Northwest Woodsman: I’m afraid that there is more to the story of this guys plight than has been told. Something wrong here that he has not revealed.
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