“I’ve heard several students say it’s the first time they ever saw someone born or die. It’s a pretty powerful experience that’s been taken away from those students.”
Edward J. Sherwood, MD, vice dean for graduate and continuing medi- cal education at Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medi- cine, planned to meet with affiliated residency program directors in mid-July to determine the impact of the cuts on those programs. A&M sponsors a family medicine program in Bryan and has af- filiated programs in Sugar Land, Corpus Christi, Killeen, and Temple. “One of our affiliated program direc- tors told me today that he was looking at almost a half-million dollar cut,” Dr. Sherwood said. “A half-million dollar blow is huge. Unless that money can be found from some other source, that will almost certainly result in a reduction in program size.” Gary Floyd, MD, chief medical officer
said. “So those programs are going to be hit pretty hard.” Finally, the preceptorship program
provided funding for students to shad- ow rural primary care physicians in the summer after their first or third year in medical school to encourage them to select primary care specialties. The fam- ily medicine preceptorship program had been in place since 1979. “I’ve heard several students say it’s the first time they ever saw someone born or die,” Dr. Silverman said. “It’s a pretty powerful experience that’s been taken away from those students.”
Reducing slots While some residency program directors were still trying to assess the impact the
budget cuts will have on their programs, Dr. Goertz says it is almost certain that some programs will have to cut slots and some programs may have to close. His advisory committee surveyed family practice residency program direc- tors during the legislative session, and seven said they might have to shut their doors if the family practice program was zeroed out, as originally proposed in the House version of the budget bill. That did not happen, but Dr. Goertz says there is still a threat that between two and five of those programs might have to close even though they still will get some THECB funding.
Officials declined to name the pro- grams, fearing that doing so could hurt their ability to fill slots in the next match.
for the John Peter Smith Health Net- work, says residency programs there will lose between $800,000 and $1 million, but the network does not plan to cut any residency slots. “We feel they’re very important, and if we can train them here, we’ll keep most of them here,” Dr. Floyd said. He says they plan to juggle operational funds to plug the funding gap. “We’re just going to try to be smarter in how we manage our resources.” Dr. Goertz also says the family medi-
cine program run by his foundation also will be able to maintain its residency slots despite losing as much as $390,000 per year in state funding. “We’re fortunate that our center is a
Roland Goertz, MD
Edward J. Sherwood, MD
46 TEXAS MEDICINE September 2011 Gary Floyd, MD Tom Blackwell, MD
large center and a foundation-support- ed center,” he said. “Our clinical board, which is the entity that funds whatever deficit might occur, has made a commit- ment to the educational programs. We are big enough now that hopefully it can get us through to the next legislative session.” Tom Blackwell, MD, associate dean of graduate medical education and vice chair for graduate medical education at The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB),
Jonathan MacClements, MD
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