By Alexander von Hafften and Lindsay Lodis
Updated: 2 hours ago Published: 4 hours ago
Alaska faces a shortage of doctors. As of December 2023, the Health Resources and Services Administration ranked Alaska 48th for primary medical needs met (21.85%), 22nd for dental needs met (34.98%), and 48th in terms of mental health needs met (11.90%).
For more than 50 years, Alaska WWAMI Medical Education, a medical school partnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Washington School of Medicine, has played a key role in the education and training of future physicians in the state . And although Alaska WWAMI’s class sizes have recently increased to 30 admitted students per year, that alone will not solve Alaska’s physician shortage problem.
The Case for the GME Expansion
To increase the number of physicians practicing in Alaska, we need to increase graduate medical education (GME) opportunities.
After graduating from medical school, GME is the next necessary step in a doctor’s professional education, required by all states before being eligible for an unrestricted medical license.
In Alaska, we require at least two years of GME, which refers to residencies, internships, and fellowships. But Alaska has the fewest GME programs, the fewest GME trainees, and the lowest ratio of medical residents to state population in the country. In our view, this shortage is the critical barrier to addressing the state’s health care needs.
The connection between GME and community doctors
Nationally, approximately one in seven physicians is in a GME program. These trainees provide 20% of inpatient care and 40% of uninsured patient care, contributing $8.4 billion in patient care annually.
Consider also that the retention rate of medical residents typically remains high in the communities where they train. For example, approximately 70% of Alaska Family Medicine Residency students remain in Alaska after completing their training. This program alone has trained more than 27% of the state’s family medicine physicians.
Where do we go from here?
Federal funding for GME is crucial, but Alaska is one of seven states that does not use Medicaid to fund GME. We also do not see federal employers, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Department of Defense, providing GME positions in Alaska.
Therefore, GME expansion in Alaska requires partnerships between systems of care and their respective funding sources. To that end, the University of Washington held a WWAMI GME Summit in Anchorage earlier this year to explore options and produced three clear recommendations for the state: First, Alaska should create a GME council to clarify a future vision and process for expand GME in Alaska. ; Second, Alaska Medicaid should support GME to signal to stakeholders and political leaders that expanding GME in Alaska is important; Third, Alaska should create a multidisciplinary GME teaching health center.
We are excited and optimistic that Anchorage was the setting for this Regional GME Summit, because it signaled that GME should be (and is) a policy priority. We strongly believe that increasing GME in Alaska will increase the number of physicians practicing here and improve healthcare access, quality and outcomes – goals we all share.
Dr. Alexander von Hafften is a psychiatrist who trained and first worked in Alaska in 1990 as a WWAMI resident in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He returned to Alaska in 1993 and has since been actively involved in undergraduate and graduate medical education.
Lindsay Lodis is a publicist for Alaska’s WWAMI School of Medical Education and has placed stories from students, faculty, and preceptors across the state to help illustrate the impact of medical education at the local, state, and regional levels since January 2023.
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