Citing the need for a comprehensive and sustained effort to strengthen graduate medical education (GME), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) last week released its five-year road map to optimize GME.
GME received national attention last year after the long-awaited report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for transitioning the current system to a transparent, performance-based system. While the AMA agreed with many of the report’s provisions, the IOM didn’t recommend adding funds to increase the number of training positions, which would protect against looming physician shortages—a fact that concerned the AMA and the AAMC.
The AAMC this week announced the results of a new workforce study it completed, finding that the nation will face a shortage of between 46,000 and 90,000 physicians by 2025. The study, which is the first comprehensive national analysis that takes into account both demographics and recent changes to care delivery and payment methods, projects shortages in both primary and specialty care, with specialty shortages particularly acute.
This shortage is called out and addressed in the AAMC’s road map, which outlines three broad areas of focus:
- Investing in future physicians. Gaining more financial support for GME would require more refined metrics of accountability in existing GME funding, aligning residency training positions with societal needs and student aspirations and desires, and building an evidence base that shows GME is a societal good.
- Optimizing the environment for learning, care and discovery. This means defining and fostering optimal learning environments in academic medical centers and improving the environment for teaching faculty.
- Preparing the physician and physician scientist for the 21st century. The rapidly evolving health care system requires continued educational transformation, so this area seeks to elevate the performance of entering residents and new practitioners and would develop models to optimize the duration of education and training.
The AAMC will work with medical schools, teaching hospitals and health systems to implement the five-year plan, and will “engage constituents, colleague organizations and non-constituent thought leaders and experts as appropriate,” the plan said.
The road map echoes the AMA’s call for four key changes needed to modernize GME, including developing innovative practice models and residency positions that reflect societal needs.
The AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative also is addressing some of these issues. For example, the 11 schools in the AMA’s consortium are defining the optimal learning environment along the continuum of medical education and training medical students in new ways to be ideal physicians of the future.
The AMA is addressing this issue by continuing its advocacy for additional GME funding and for programs in rural and underserved locations. In addition, the AMA is working across stakeholder groups to reduce restrictions to rural and other underserved community experiences for GME programs and encouraging innovative ways to train physicians, with emphasis on physician-led, team-based care.
Students and residents also are advocating for expanded GME programs, using social media and other tools to call on Congress to #SaveGME. Yesterday, hundreds of medical students descended on Washington, D.C. to speak to Congress face-to-face. Look for more on the Medical Student Advocacy Day at AMA Wire®.
