Experts lament number of medical residents in Florida

[azskeptic]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...te/8211508.htm

MIKE SCHNEIDER

Associated Press


ORLANDO, Fla. - Florida doesn't do a good job of producing its own physicians, experts told members of the Board of Governors who are expected in the near future to consider proposals to add two more medical schools to the state's university system.

Florida ranks 45th in the nation in number of medical residents, or physicians in training. The state's 17 medical residents per 100,000 people is well below the national average of 37 residents per 100,000 people.

"Florida significantly imports most of the physicians who come here," Linda Harris Rackleff, director of the Council of Florida Medical School Deans said during a presentation for board members. "Most of our physicians haven't been trained here."

The medical resident statistic is important because nationally, on average, more than half of physicians ultimately practice in the state where they complete their residency training, said Dr. Mathis Becker, chairman of the Graduate Medical Education Committee, a body charged with monitoring medical education in the state.

More physicians are going to be needed to keep pace with Florida's rapid population growth, which includes a large influx of retirees who place greater demands on the health care system than other groups, experts told the Board of Governors.

Both Florida International University in Miami and the University of Central Florida in Orlando have expressed interest in opening medical schools. Neither university has made a formal proposal to the Board of Governors, which would have to approve the medical schools.

"We have, already in a number of specialties, a shortage of doctors and it's only going to grow in the years ahead," said John Hitt, president of the University of Central Florida.

But Dr. Zach Zachariah, chair of the board's Medical Education Subcommittee, said he was unconvinced there was a shortage of doctors. He said a bigger obstacle to doctors practicing in Florida was a runaway cost of medical malpractice insurance.

"This is taxpayers money," Zachariah said after the presentation. "Just because someone wants a school doesn't mean we're going to give it to them."

Statistics show that once medical residents are in Florida, many don't want to leave. About 62 percent of physicians who completed their residencies in Florida decided to stay, ranking Florida fourth in the nation, Becker said.

"If we have a chance of training them in Florida, we have a good chance of keeping them here," he said.

The Graduate Medical Education Committee has estimated that Florida needs an additional 2,000 residency positions over the next five years to approach the national average. The state is 2,500 residency slots short of keeping up with the state's current population, according to a report by the medical education committee.

Some experts said there were other options besides opening up new medical schools.

Patricia Haynie, an associate vice president at the University of South Florida Health Sciences Center, said nearly 200 additional medical-student slots could be added in Florida by 2011 by expanding medical school programs at the Florida, South Florida, Miami and Nova Southeastern universities.

Although Florida's 48,706 licensed physicians ranks it fourth in the nation in total number of doctors, the state is 17th in the ratio of physicians per 100,000 people, Rackleff said. That ranking slipped from 11th between 2000 and 2004.