You may have heard about or experienced the long wait for an appointment to see a preferred doctor. But imagine a world where physicians are in even greater demand. Where the health needs of a population that is both aging and growing can’t be met by the physician workforce. Where not everyone who needs specific care will get to see an appropriately-trained expert and those that do could be required to travel outside the region for an in-person consultation.
Many studies, including those commissioned by the American Association of Medical Colleges, have predicted a shortage of as many as 100,000 doctors nationwide in the coming years. The situation is especially critical in South Florida since research shows that physicians tend to settle in areas where they’ve done residency training. Florida currently ranks 42nd out of the 50 states in residency spots per 100,000 population (although we do better than most states in retaining physicians trained in its residencies).
That’s part of the reason why Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) has put its Graduate Medical Education (GME) program on the fast track, laying an academic infrastructure in Broward County while pursuing full accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in eight medical specialties within the next three years. Residency programs in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation have already been approved and will begin training doctors next summer. Those residents will be taught by a high caliber faculty of physicians in a new $20 Million facility in Pembroke Pines and throughout Memorial’s six-hospital system.
They’ll ultimately be joined by physicians seeking advanced training in General Surgery, Psychiatry, Neurology and other fields. The emphasis is on training doctors using innovative new models of medical education so they graduate with the skills needed to practice in a world very different from our current one. Since today’s graduates will be practicing medicine in 2050 and beyond, residency programs must take the future into consideration as they create training programs today.
While a large part of GME’s focus will be on teaching doctors the clinical aspects of medicine, we also understand the importance of producing well-rounded professionals, whether they remain employed by us or by other healthcare organizations. That means caregivers that not only have expertise in an area of specialization, but are also focused on safety, transparent in their dealings, data driven, cost conscious, and empathetic to the patient experience.
We’ve made significant progress with GME in the last two years and are excited and honored to train the next generation of physicians. Those interested in applying to our residencies in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, or Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation can visit www.mhs.net/gme for more information.
