Gov’t scholarships for med schools seems like a no brainer. The AMA has the number of students allowed in all locked up, crack that nut and you’ll have many more fine doctors. My husband had an extraordinarily complex operation at the University of Chicago – his doctor had to try for THREE years to get into med school before he was finally admitted. He was the best.

The number of students in med schools in the U.S. has nothing to do with the AMA. It has, as Kirk has said, to do with their funding. A lot of people misperceive that the AMA is power hungry and all powerful in medicine, and that’s just not the case at all. Sure they lobby like many large organizations who have professional members. The perception of the AMA and what it does by people is far different from reality.

Money from the government for scholarships have become extremely limited over the last 30-40 years.

There are two such programs: The Exceptional Financial Need Scholarship, which requires primary care commitment, and the Financial Assistance for Disadvantaged Health Professions Students Scholarship. In general, scholarships — gift aid — are largely need based only.

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship Program is a program sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service. Recipients are obligated to serve in physician shortage areas as assigned by the NHSC. The minimum service obligation for this program is two years. The NHSC gives preference to persons with primary care specialty goals and students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds (and/or come from primary care deficient areas).

Most of the financial aid money available to medical students comes in the form of loans, e.g. the Federal Stafford Loan for students ($8,000 for two semesters), the Federal Supplemental Loan for students ($10,000), and the Health Education Assistance Loan (HEAL). Other types of loans include MEDLOANS, Health Professions Loans (primary care commitment only), and Loans for Disadvantaged Students.

As to your anecdote, of course it is true that the admissions process, where there are only so many slots available because of funding–not the AMA– rejects people who could become excellent physicians if given the chance. There are only a very limited number of slots for applicants due purely to funding.

Actually the AMA wants to train as many physicians to stay in the US and practice as possible. There is very very critical shortage of MDs in rural counties in every state in the U.S.

We are also getting into a situation where the transfer time for seriously ill patients or trauma patients to the appropriate tertiary hospitals and trauma centers is dangerously high, because of funding and attrition of these centers and people are dying in transit but that’s another discussion.

This is also not factually correct. The med school tuitions are paidwhile the med students are in school – by student loans.

Loan repayment by graduating docs affects the lenders – the students were paying tuition every term, so the med schools have all their money by the time the students graduate.

Moreover, the Federal funding base US med schools rely upon means the med schools’ mission is to educate students who will graduate and practice in the US.

Absolutely correct of course.

Clinton’s biggest applause line of the night thus far concerned the dynastic question– why should the electorate look forward to a potential 30 years of Bush/Clintons dominance. Clinton responded that it takes another Clinton to clean up after another Bush mess.

Ahem…Does it strike anyone else that she couldn’t have offered up a a more damning critique of the Coporatist Establishment????

The flip side is that students graduate from med school with high levels of debt, and those debts constrain students’ capacity to enter the (relatively) low paid primary care tracks.

One of the reasons, and I know this to be true, the medical schools prefer to have foreign medical students enrolled, as opposed to Americans who will have to take loans, because the foreign countries pay for the schooling of the students and they are more likely to get paid in the long run.

This is also not factually correct. The med school tuitions are paidwhile the med students are in school – by student loans.

Loan repayment by graduating docs affects the lenders – the students were paying tuition every term, so the med schools have all their money by the time the students graduate.

Moreover, the Federal funding base US med schools rely upon means the med schools’ mission is to educate students who will graduate and practice in the US.

complicated agreement and reid spoke quickly. for those who are interested in trying to figure out what’s happening before the legislative calendar is up, i’ll try to post a youtube in a few minutes.

At the graduate or PGY level, residents are paid–they don’t pay a fee for their training–but they pay by providing cheap labor with ridiculous hours depending on the residency you choose.

The big influx of foreign trained people in the medical training system are at the after med school residency training level. It’s a multifaceted subject, but there are exponentially more of them in private hospital training settings partly because a high percentage of them don’t get accepted into tertiary medical center residency programs versus American applicants and they provide cheap labor for the private hospitals with minimal university affiliation (not all private hospitals of course are in that category). They provide cheap labor for the tertiary university affiliated hospitals as well, but the quality of education is much higher.