In the United States, despite a critical shortage of primary care less than 25 percent of newly minted doctors go into this field and only a tiny fraction, 4.8 percent, set up shop in rural areas.
Obese Patients Repeatedly Switch Primary Care Doctors: Study
A new Johns Hopkins research suggests that overweight and obese patients are significantly more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to repeatedly switch primary care doctors.
A new Johns Hopkins research suggests that overweight and obese patients are significantly more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to repeatedly switch primary care doctors.
The graduate medical education system (GME) in the United States relies on public funding including nearly $10 billion in funds from the Medicare program and another $3 billion from Medicaid. Despite the large infusion of cash, experts have said that the federal government does not hold residency programs accountable for producing physicians trained to serve in rural or underserved parts of the country. Even though Medicare and Medicaid represent the largest public investment in the U.S. health workforce, there are still serious shortfalls in the number of primary care physicians in some geographical regions and in other high need specialties like general surgery.
Chen and her colleagues studied the career paths of 8,977 physicians who had graduated from 759 medical residency sites from 2006 to 2008. The researchers analyzed data to find out where these new physicians ended up practicing 3 to 5 years after graduation. They found that overall only 25.2 percent of the physicians in this study worked as primary care docs although this number almost certainly is an overestimate because it includes graduates who practice as hospitalists, Chen said.
Disagreement Found on the Role of Primary Care Nurse Practitioners
The time when the U.S. health system is facing both a worsening shortage of primary care physicians and an increasing demand for primary care services, one broadly recommended strategy has been to increase the number and the responsibilities of nurse practitioners.
The time when the U.S. health system is facing both a worsening shortage of primary care physicians and an increasing demand for primary care services, one broadly recommended strategy has been to increase the number and the responsibilities of nurse practitioners.
About 66 million people in the United States live in rural areas or urban neighborhoods that have too few primary care physicians or access to primary care in clinics. That's about one in five Americans who lack adequate access to this kind of essential care and might develop more serious health conditions as a result, Chen said.
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Primary Care Provider Density Might Influence Lung Cancer Mortality Rates
It is common knowledge that lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.
It is common knowledge that lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.
The new study underscores the growing disconnect between federal funding to pay for residency programs and the nation's shortage of primary care doctors. The study also found that:
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Outcomes for Treatment of Sleep Apnea With Primary Care Vs. Specialist Care Examined By Study
According to a study, among patients who were identified as likely having moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, treatment based in primary care was not clinically inferior.
According to a study, among patients who were identified as likely having moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, treatment based in primary care was not clinically inferior.
- In contrast, the bottom twenty programs produced only 684 primary care graduates out of 10,937 or 6.3 percent. Yet the study notes these sites received a whopping $842 million in GME payments-an amount that reflects not a dedication to training doctors in primary care but in churning out highly paid specialists who typically practice in big cities or the suburbs.
Chen, Fitzhugh Mullan, MD, the Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at GW and their colleagues note that almost two-thirds of the nearly $10 billion in Medicare funding for GME annually goes to 200 hospitals-and those sites perform poorly when it comes to producing primary care doctors. Policymakers should take a hard look at the skewed incentives and other factors that have led to the current primary care crisis and develop a more accountable GME system, according to the authors.
"Better balance in medical specialties and more primary care physicians will be essential to building an effective and affordable health system going forward," Mullan said. Other authors of the paper include Andrew Bazemore, MD, MPH, the director of the Robert Graham Center and Robert Phillips, MD, MSPH, the vice president for research and policy at the American Board of Family Medicine.
The study, including a link to an interactive map that shows how well residency sites perform when it comes to primary care, appears in the "Published Ahead-of-Print" section of the online edition of Academic Medicine. The research was funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.
About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:
Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education and is now the only school of public health in the nation's capital. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health.
Source-Newswise
