NPR Broadcast / Residency Shortage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7u4oUAAOyg

August 3, 2017, someone was listening….Julio Ochoa, editor for Health News Florida, broadcast a story about the residency shortage in Florida on NPR Radio, WUSF.  He started the story by talking with Dr. Michael Smith, a 2014 graduate from a Caribbean medical school, who has applied 3 years in a row for a residency in Medicine.  Each year Dr. Smith applied to hundreds of residencies at a cost of $5,000 per year with no luck.  He will re-apply for a 4^th time in 2018.  Dr. Smith has accrued a medical school debt of about $350,000 to date, with the inability to work as a licensed physician to begin repayment.  To work in the US as a licensed physician requires a minimum 1 year post graduate training in a US residency.  In reality, the “real minimum” number of residency years is 3 years, for the ability to become board certified.  Doctors are really considered “employable” when they are board certified.

Mr. Ochoa broadcast this story one day before the beginning of the Florida Medical Association annual meeting.  The timing could not have been better!  Apparently, most of the meeting’s attendees did not hear this story.  A proposal to create the new license described in Mr. Ochoa’s story to preserve the unmatched doctors, failed to gain support from the membership.  They voted “no” on the proposal.  The objections raised dealt with the belief that a residency shortage does not really exist, that the doctor graduates were too selective in their choice for residency specialties and that is why they did not match, and that emphasis should be placed on increasing medical education (number of residency slots) and not on creating “short-term” licensing.  Each of these objections provides fodder for upcoming blogs.  The current situation of the residency shortage continues to wallow in the doldrums due to these very misconceptions.

By the way, that “someone” who was listening to Mr. Ochoa’s broadcast, offered Dr. Smith an immediate spot in a “Transitional Residency Program”.  Hopefully, this is “the foot in the door” that Dr. Smith has long awaited!  Congratulations Dr. Smith on your willingness to speak out about this travesty of the residency shortage.  It was never YOUR fault.  It was our Nation that broke its “Social Contract”!

Please listen to Mr. Ochoa’s story for yourself.  Here is the link where you will find it:

http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/lack-residency-slots-florida-leaves-some-doctors-without-licenses#stream/0

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