Doctors are trained at university- or institute-affiliated medical schools. Though some of these schools are privately funded and don't receive money from state governments to defray costs, many others have budgets that are padded by state taxes in an effort to decrease the cost of medical school for future doctors. Other loan forgiveness programs aim to push doctors toward high-need specialties.
Where it Exists
The United States will suffer a deficit of 124,000 doctors by 2025, if the current funding model for most medical schools continues and if doctors continue to push toward the most popular and lucrative specialties, according to an October 2008 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents all 150-plus medical schools in the United States and Canada.
State Funding Cuts
Despite these physician shortages looming, state funding for public medical schools in some regions has been ripe for the slashing in the 21st century's first decade, a period marked by widespread economic turmoil and a housing crisis. At the University of Colorado's medical schools, the only ones publicly funded in the state, budget strapped administrators lamented a state general-fund line item that was largely the same in 2010 as it was in 1982, forcing the school -- like many others -- to raise tuition to cover the costs. The school's funding in 2010: $12.2 million; in 2011, $10.9 million.
Squeakiest Wheels Get Grease
At the University of California, Riverside, school leaders cried out for state support in June 2010, just two years before construction would be finalized at the height of that state's budget crisis, according to a March, 2011 article in "The Press Enterprise.'' In reply, the state legislature earmarked $15 million in funding for the UC Riverside Medical School, which leaders say will aim to fill Riverside-area clinics with doctors educated in needed specialties like geriatric care.
A Nationwide Fight
Every state medical college seeks to attract needed graduate-level medical students, improve medical research and add well-paying physicians' jobs to local tax coffers, according to the website denverpost.com. The problem: do it in the midst of budgetary crunches. Many state medical associations, like the one in Texas, recommend an increase in the number and type of "homegrown" doctors by improving the state-funding formula that would help more students pay for school.
Tags: medical schools, many others, state budget, state medical, United States