COM Students Express Concerns at First Tuesday in Austin
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COMOIACommunicationsNews2007 News ArchiveCOM Students Express Concerns at First Tuesday in Austin
Recently named the TMA Chapter of the Year, the College of Medicine chapter continued its strong support of TMA with more than 100 medical students in attendance, comprising 50 percent of total attendance by students from Texas medical schools.
The students rallied at the press conference for the Child Health Insurance Program bill that passed in the Texas House and will increase funding for uninsured children. Afterwards, the medical students met with Texas Representatives and Senators to discuss Graduate Medical Education funding, which funds residency positions within the state.
Currently, Texas sponsors too few resident positions, much less than other populous states such as California and New York. Because of the lack of funding, many medical students have to relocate to out-of-state residencies. Of those leaving the state, 38% would have preferred to practice in Texas, but were unable to do so, due to a lack of positions.
COM chapter president Ravi Kumar echoed these sentiments, "The main point we expressed was that if they fund residency slots, we will stay in Texas. The majority of us want to stay and practice in Texas, but there aren't enough residency spots for us all, due to state funding inadequacies."
Many studies have shown that most physicians will start a practice near their residency location, so the loss of medical students has contributed to Texas’ current rank of 45th in the nation for physicians per population. Furthermore, each medical student’s education costs the state $200,000, so Texas loses a $27.4 million dollar investment when future physicians leave the state. Therefore, funding these residency positions through Graduate Medical Education benefits the population’s medical health and is fiscally responsible.
At the end of day, the physicians of tomorrow felt that their voices had been heard and the problem could be solved.
"Our state legislators were very receptive to our requests and suggestions on the issue of Graduate Medical Funding,” Kumar said.
For more information about First Tuesdays, visit: https://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=5211
First-year student Ryan Reddy contributed to this report.
