Oregon doctors want more in-state students
Physicians say the medical school's tuition may be keeping Oregonians from entering the profession.
By Myrle Croasdale, amednews staff. Dec. 20, 2004.
During the last 10 years family physician George Waldmann, MD, has noticed that more of the medical students doing clerkships with him are from out of state.
The observation took on added significance as Dr. Waldmann, past president of the Oregon Medical Assn., saw his state losing more physicians than it was gaining.
He did a little research and was appalled at what he found. Students from Oregon, who through the 1980s had made up almost 100% of the entering class of the state's only medical school, made up less than half of the class by 2004. At the same time, tuition for Oregon Health & Science University's School of Medicine rose to equal that of private medical colleges in the region.
In response, Dr. Waldmann and his OMA colleagues passed a resolution in November calling attention to these issues and opened a dialogue with medical school officials, who are now promising to create a task force to seek solutions. The Oregon physicians hope their initiative will do something to help keep the medical profession within the grasp of future Oregonians.
"If I had not been able to go in-state to medical school, I wouldn't have gone into medicine," said Dr. Waldmann, who came from a blue-collar family and was in his family's first generation to attend college.
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