Academic leaders work to ease work force crisis

The profession's ranks are being hurt by rising medical school debt, lifestyle preferences and other issues.

By Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli, AMNews correspondent. Aug. 25, 2008.

Current policies will not avert a U.S. health work force crisis, according to a report released in July by the Assn. of Academic Health Centers, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group. Its report recommends developing a national planning body to unite efforts to stop work force shortages.

"We're at risk, our nation's health is at risk, our position as a global leader is at risk," AAHC President Steven A. Wartman, MD, PhD, said during a news conference on the report. "Projected shortages are not new, but as a nation, we lack a work force policy and without that, we will not be able to solve the looming shortage of health professionals."

The report, "Out of Order, Out of Time: The State of the Nation's Health Workforce," points to a long and growing list of challenges creating shortages in many areas. While projected shortages in primary care and nursing are not new, the demand for care is greater, due in part to the baby boomer wave of retiring physicians and increasing medical needs of the growing elderly population.

Other issues fueling shortages of health care workers: lifestyle preferences (medical students want regular hours and time home with families), economic disparities, rising medical school debt, a dwindling pool of medical school faculty, and fragmented health care work force policymaking, experts said.

The report recommends an integrated, comprehensive national health work force policy created by a unified planning group.