Funding the future

The problems facing healthcare training today are not simple. Predictions about future demand for physicians have a poor track record, as the GMENAC studies of the 1980s showed. Even if one could predict perfectly the demand for physicians in the history has shown that it takes 1040 years for the full effects of increased medical school enrollment to be felt. The rate of GME must rise. In its present state, GME could sustain reductions as great as 10% of funding without the loss of total residency slots, but any decrease in GME funding will undoubtedly perpetuate the inadequacy of the physician workforce. By 2016, without increased GME funding, there will be a substantial increase in the number of unmatched US seniors and a substantial decrease in the number of foreign medical grads.