PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

AMA meeting: Delegates respond to rising student debt

The Association wants medical schools to tell students why their tuition is going up and whether incentives were involved in their loans.

By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. July 7, 2008.

Annual Meeting 2008

Meeting Notes

Resources

Chicago -- The AMA House of Delegates is asking medical schools to deal more openly with medical students when it comes to student loans, tuition hikes and the schools' spending.

The house agreed to support medical school policies that require financial aid officers to disclose any incentives they have received from lenders in exchange for designation as a "preferred lender."

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Medical students need to know when the people advising them have a stake in the lending process, said Peter Ragusa, a medical student at the University of Minnesota and an alternate delegate from the Medical Student Section.

Being pushed to borrow from a lender who isn't offering the best terms isn't just a matter of a few more dollars of interest, he said. "Medical debt is a major factor in specialty choice."

The AMA will also support standardized disclosures by medical schools explaining the reasons for tuition increases and the use of income generated by them.

Supporters said the schools shouldn't see medical students as cash cows who can be tapped to fund schools' needs beyond the cost of educating them.

Meanwhile, the house asked the AMA to study potential solutions to reducing medical students' debt.

"The medical student debt crisis imposes great strain on their psychological, economic welfare and also greatly restricts their choices in specialties or areas of medicine upon graduation," said Verner Stillner, MD, an alternate delegate for the Alaska State Medical Assn. and a psychiatrist from Juneau, Alaska. "We strongly support the AMA pursuing long-term solutions in this crisis."

Relief for growing debt cannot come soon enough, medical students told committee members.

"When I graduate, I will have accumulated nearly a quarter of a million dollars in debt, and that's from a state school," Ragusa said.

The average debt load carried by doctors leaving medical school reached $140,000 in 2007. Debt is already driving some prospective students out of medicine, or away from primary care specialties, delegates testified.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Meeting notes: Medical education

Issue: There are no standards to define pain medicine specialists.

Proposed action: Encourage interested parties to join to define scope of practice and define appropriate credentialing of pain specialists. [ Adopted ]

Issue: There remains a disparity in pay and advancement opportunities between female and male physicians.

Proposed action: Encourage specialty and state societies to find solutions to gender disparity, support doctors in balancing work and life, train women physicians in leadership and contract negotiations, and publicize best practices. [ Adopted ]

Issue: Some residency programs will not accept graduates of international medical schools.

Proposed action: Ask the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to make IMG status a prohibited discrimination. [ Adopted ]

Issue: Residency programs vary in leave time and whether time off results in repeating training.

Proposed action: Ask the ACGME to standardize leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and to encourage the American Board of Medical Specialties to standardize absence policies. [ Adopted ]