NY Times Editorial: Lack of Training Slots Contributing to Physician Shortage
A NY Timeseditorial calls for more government dollars for graduate medical training so that there can be more residency slots to help relieve the nationwide physician shortage. More Americans are graduating medical school, but because the number of residency slots has not changed, all that is happening is that doctors educated abroad are being displaced in residency programs by US-educated doctors and the total physician supply remains unchanged.
My USA Today Op-Ed on the VA's J-1 Program Problems
USA Today published a column written by Siskind Susser shareholder Greg Siskind on July 10th. The piece criticizes the Veterans Administration for having a dysfunctional J-1 waiver that is failing to produce doctors for an agency facing a desperate physician shortage.
ECFMG is reporting that 26,678 first year residency positions were offered in the 2014, an increase of 540 slots over last year. IMG numbers also increased. According to ECFMG:
The number of IMGs who matched to first-year positions increased by 106 compared to 2013. Of the 12,482 IMGs who participated in the 2014 Match, 6,357 (50.9%) matched. In the 2013 Match, 6,251 (49.3%) IMGs were matched to first-year positions. (The preceding data include a small number of Fifth Pathway applicants who participated in the 2013 and 2014 Matches; for 2014, these data include 15 Fifth Pathway participants who are not represented in the data below for non-U.S. citizen and U.S. citizen IMGs.)Of the 7,334 IMG participants who were not U.S. citizens, 3,633 (49.5%) obtained first-year positions. The number of non-U.S. citizen IMGs who obtained positions in 2014 increased for the third year in a row, this year by 77.
CIS Ombudsman Makes Recommendation on Allowing Conrad 30 J-2 Spouses to Switch to H-1Bs
Several months ago, USCIS examiners began denying J-2 to H-1B change of status petitions for spouses of J-1 doctors who pursued Conrad 30 waivers. USCIS seemed to be interpreting a regulation that says J-2s "may" change to H-4 after the waiver to J-2s "may only" change to H-4. The CIS Ombudsman, however, has examined the issue and believes USCIS is wrong on the law and their view is hurting health care in America.
Administrator of North Carolina Conrad Waiver Program has Passed Away
Siskind Susser has learned that Wanda Green, the J-1 waiver administrator for the state's Conrad 30 program, passed away unexpectedly. We have not heard yet what the status of the North Carolina program is.
The Washington Post reports that of more than 8000 physicians in Washington, DC, only 453 are primary care doctors seeing patients for more than 20 hours per week. Health care officials are worried that the targeted 25,000 increase in those receiving health insurance in the capital city under the ACA will have difficulty finding primary care physicians.
Becker's Hospital Review has a nice article providing a quickie explanation for the country's physician shortage (which is behind why physician immigration reform is so needed). In short, we face a shrinking supply of doctors, a growing demand and a stagnant physician training infrastructure.
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