Health centers struggle to recruit clinicians

Trends in medical student interests and proposed federal cuts to primary care training programs could worsen the problem, health center officials say.

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews correspondent. April 10, 2006.

Community health centers face "substantial challenges" in recruiting physicians and other clinicians, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

So far, staffing problems haven't held up Bush administration efforts to expand the number of health centers as a way to provide care to uninsured Americans. But health center officials worry that declining interest in primary care among medical students and proposed cuts to federal primary care training programs could make staff recruitment an even bigger challenge.

The study, based on results of a nationwide survey of health center executives in 2004, found hundreds of vacancies for physicians, nurses and dentists at federally qualified health centers.

The findings suggest that some facilities are not adequately staffed to meet the needs of patients, said Roger Rosenblatt, MD, a professor of family medicine at the University of Washington and the study's lead author. "Vacancy rates we observed are high enough to really impede the ability of these centers to do their job," Dr. Rosenblatt said.

Health centers were hard-pressed for family physicians above all. The survey found nearly 430 vacancies for family physicians, the largest number for any specialty, and 13.3% of the funded positions in that discipline.

Family physicians are the backbone of the physician work force at community health centers, representing nearly half of their physician staff.