Financing Of The Graduate Medical Education

By Author: Bimol Bee
Total Articles: 868
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The government has always provided the financial aids of such field, as the educational sphere. In the United States the principal source of funding for graduate medical education is the Medicare. According to this point a great amount of the residency programs have faced limitations when the economy went sour. It is a pity but the majority of the states found the sphere of the graduate medical education as a target to cut down their budgets. On the basis of this fact the teaching hospitals and academic health centers appeared in the bad situations. The institutions had to cut down the costs and to begin the work on the looking for the new funds and the financial sources, except Medicare. The main task of the centers put the main stress on the maintaining their residency programs while they should be expanding them to cope up with the growing number of physicians, the increasing demand from the population, the new advances and technologies in healthcare. All these questions require the urgent solution.

One of the primary questions is the dependence of the government on the residency positions by the specialty. In this ...
... case the funding takes the second according to the importance value place. In the course of such a correlation one can observe the important and not too pleasant consequences. A great amount of the physicians became clinical specialists while the healthcare delivery system in the US should be improving primary and ambulatory care practices. If compared with the system in the United Kingdom, the government finances residency positions and controls the number of slots by specialty. There is the solution of this situation that can help to find the way out for the United States educational system. If the US government made the evaluation of the medical specialties that need more residents and which do not, then the residency programs will be more efficient and cost effective. Also, if Medicare wasn't the only main contributor to graduate medical training programs and the government allowed for more entrepreneurs and private companies to help fund these programs under its supervision, the unnecessary cut backs will decrease, hence expanding efficient residency programs that focus on areas and domains that need more physicians. There appeared another way out that is described with the basis of the increasing the grants and scholarships from universities for medical students with excellent performances to enable them to enroll in residency programs in the country or even abroad. The higher educational establishments could limit the budget that goes to unnecessary facilities and to use it to fund residency programs with the help of generous donors and fund raising events. Either way, federal funding, academic hospitals, universities and state legislators should collaborate to avoid any shortages in graduate medical education additional to controlling the number of positions by specialty. That can help to change the situation and to provide comprehensive medical care in all areas.

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