GMe cOnSOrtiuM, cOnt. More than 60 percent of Cascades East Family Medicine graduates now practice in communities of 25,000 or less. OHSU trainees in the VirtuOHSU Surgical Simulation Center. In recent years, U.S. medical school enrollment has grown rapidly due to increases in class size and a surge in new medical schools. However, graduate medical education programs and positions have not kept up with the growth in medical school volume. In part, this is due to the federal government’s “cap” on GME funding as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. What does this mean for today’s medical students? For more than 600 students last year, it meant putting their GME training and their career on hold.3 “The last three to five years, highly qualified medical school graduates have had difficulty finding spots. Sure it’s still a minority, but when you’re talking about a few hundred people a year not getting training spots, that’s a large number, especially if it’s you,” said Patrick Brunett, MD, FACEP, Clinical Professor, Emergency Medicine and Associate Dean, Graduate Medical Education, OHSU School of Medicine. Statewide consortium begins discussions on community need OHSU School of Medicine’s Senior Associate Dean for Education, George Mejicano, MD, MS, says the University is taking part in discussions about the potential role a statewide GME consortium could play in gauging community need and capacity for GME expansion in Oregon. “It’s all hands on deck, as one organization can’t do it alone,” said Mejicano. “We need as many stakeholders involved as possible because this is not a ‘they’llsolve it-in-Portland’ kind of problem or Samaritan Health Services resident gains hands-on experience through practicing Osteopathic Manipulation on a patient. Samaritan Health Services residents and interns participate in community education programs, such as Tar Wars. Source: Data obtained from the Oregon Medical Board in March 2014. Bell serves as co-chair of the new statewide GME consortium steering committee, along with OHSU’s Dr. Brunett. Both leaders say a decentralized approach to the program will be essential to its success. 1. NRMP Results and Data 2014 Main Residency Match 2. AAMC 2013 State Physician Workforce Data Book 3. NRMP Results and Data 2014 Main Residency Match issue. It effects our entire profession, and it’s our collective responsibility to figure this out.” The developing GME Rural Primary Care Consortium was essentially kick-started by a $506,000 grant from MODA Health in collaboration with the Oregon Educators Benefits Board. The money was allocated to the Area Health Education Center of Southwest Oregon to explore a GME Consortium to establish residency programs in rural areas. “I think one of our driving principles is really distribution and maldistribution in Oregon. Approximately fifty-five percent of physicians in Oregon are in the Portland/ metropolitan area. We don’t have a shortage of physicians in Portland. If you come down the I-5 corridor there are really good pockets where we don’t really have a tremendous shortage; but if you look at a map of Oregon—northwest, southeast, central, or southwest—there’s a terrible shortage. People are driving miles and miles for basic medical care,” said Nancy Bell, RN, MPH, Administrative Director of Medical Education at Samaritan Health in Corvallis. 16 Medicine in Oregon www.TheOMA.org
OMA Spring 2015 Magazine
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