California public hospital set to close residencies

It may mark the first time a university has eliminated all physician training programs while the host hospital stayed open.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Dec. 11, 2006.

The 233 medical residents at Martin Luther King Jr./Charles R. Drew Medical Center are wondering if they'll have a paycheck this month, and two thirds are scrambling to figure out how they'll finish their training as the inner-city medical center in Los Angeles closes its residency programs.

The Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science announced in November that it would move its residents to other hospitals as of Dec. 1 then shutter its 15 residencies as of July 1, 2007.

The King/Drew medical center lost graduate medical education funding and more than half its annual general budget when the hospital failed a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality inspection this fall.

With the facility no longer allowed to participate in Medicare and Medicaid as of Nov. 30, residents will move to other area hospitals to complete the academic year. Drew's programs are scheduled to officially close July 1, 2007, with 71 residents graduating and 162 residents looking for new training sites, according to Nancy Hanna, MD, associate dean for graduate medical education at the university.

Uncertainty has characterized residents' lives for some time, as financial shortfalls and patient deaths sparked investigations into the hospital.

"This has been rough," said Erold Jean-Francois, MD, an ophthalmology resident. "We've been assured we'll continue our training, but not knowing where is hard."

Dr. Jean-Francois works in a clinic outside the medical center, which he has been told will retain its training status. But the medical center is no longer an approved surgical site, and an alternative has yet to be approved.