House refers resolution on alerting students to GME squeeze

The AOA House of Delegates on July 17 referred a resolution aimed at making osteopathic medical students aware of the “adverse effect” that the shortage of graduate training opportunities could have on their careers.

The Michigan Osteopathic Association submitted the resolution to acknowledge the “tremendous” financial debt students can accumulate and the increasingly uncertain means they have to begin paying it off, says Myral R. Robbins, DO, a trustee of the Michigan association and a member of the House Committee on Educational Affairs, which recommended the resolution’s referral.

Committee member Kenneth H. Johnson, DO, added that the resolution was intended to help students make an informed decision about entering osteopathic medical school, after which they could “potentially end up with $200,000 of debt and no graduate positions to train in.”

The AOA’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, to which the resolution was referred, can “make quality recommendations that meet the intent of this resolution,” the reference committee explained in its report to the House.

GME shortage

Since the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the number of funded graduate medical training slots has remained fixed at about 100,000. At the same time, enrollments in undergraduate and graduate medical education and have continued to climb.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ 2009 Medical School Enrollment Survey (PDF), the number of first-year DO and MD students in 2014-2015 is expected to reach more than 26,550, an increase of more than one-third of the 2002-2003 enrollment figure. The expanding medical student body, the AAMC says, will “put great pressure on entry-level graduate medical education positions, which have not been growing as rapidly.”