says UTMB does not plan to cut any of its 570 residency slots in 48 different programs, even though it will lose sev- eral million dollars in funding. Instead, UTMB will cut in other areas, such as re- ducing the number of conferences resi- dents attend, eliminating some rotations at hospitals in Houston, and other cost- cutting measures that could impact the residents’ education experience. Jonathan MacClements, MD, director of medical education and chair and pro- gram director of the Department of Fam- ily Medicine at the UT Health Science Center in Tyler, runs a 24-resident family medicine program. He says the cuts will amount to almost 20 percent of his bud- get, which he thought was going to force some serious cutbacks in residency slots. Fortunately, UTHC Tyler President
Kirk A. Calhoun, MD, “is absolutely committed to making sure that pri- mary health care moves forward,” Dr. MacClements said. “I’m going to be in a lot better shape than a lot of my col- leagues. Sadly though, a further unfore- seen casualty from these cutbacks will be the reduction in faculty development programs, like the Waco Faculty Devel- opment Center, that were partially sup- ported by these state educational funds. It takes resources to develop physicians as educators who can train the next gen- eration of physicians.” Dr. Goertz says his program has host- ed that faculty development center for 33 years to help junior faculty members become better teachers.
Exporting physicians Even if many primary care residency pro- grams can find other funding to allow them to maintain residency slots, medi- cal educators say the cuts will devastate efforts to train more homegrown phy- sicians in Texas. In 2010, Texas gradu- ated 1,404 medical students and offered 1,390 first-year residency slots. THECB projects that in 2013 Texas will graduate 1,544 new physicians. Without new resi- dency slots, 154 new physicians would have to leave the state to complete their residency training. “We’ve been expanding medical school class size in Texas, and we have exceed- ed the number of PGY-1 [post graduate
year 1] residency positions,” said Dr. Sherwood. “So we’re now a net exporter of new doctors trained to a significant extent at taxpayer expense. That’s not sound public policy, and it certainly does not address the needs for the future phy- sician workforce to take care of Texans.”
Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board (THECB) officials say they have funding to continue loan repayments for the next two fiscal years but will run out of money after August 2013 if lawmak- ers don’t reestablish the program. Lawmakers slashed funding for PEL-
Loan program cuts could hurt health professional shortage areas
More than 100 Texas communities could be at risk of losing their physician be- cause of cuts to the Physician Education Loan Repayment Program (PELRP) the Texas Legislature enacted this year.
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September 2011 TEXAS MEDICINE 47 6/9/11 1:29 PM
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