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Addressing the Nation’s Physician Workforce Needs: The Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Recommendations on Graduate Medical Education Reform

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ABSTRACT

The Graduate Medical Education (GME) system in the United States (US) has garnered worldwide respect, graduating over 25,000 new physicians from over 8,000 residency and fellowship programs annually. GME is the portal of entry to medical practice and licensure in the US, and the pathway through which resident physicians develop the competence to practice independently and further develop their career plans. The number and specialty distribution of available GME positions shapes the overall composition of our national workforce; however, GME is failing to provide appropriate programs that support the delivery of our society’s system of healthcare. This paper, prepared by the Health Policy Education Subcommittee of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and unanimously endorsed by SGIM’s Council, outlines a set of recommendations on how to reform the GME system to best prepare a physician workforce that can provide high quality, high value, population-based, and patient-centered health care, aligned with the dynamic needs of our nation’s healthcare delivery system. These recommendations include: accurate workforce needs assessment, broadened GME funding sources, increased transparency of the use of GME dollars, and implementation of incentives to increase the accountability of GME-funded programs for the preparation and specialty selection of their program graduates.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors and all other contributors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, A-208, Boston, MA, USA

    Angela Jackson MD

  2. San Francisco School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Robert B. Baron MD, MS

  3. Division of General Internal Medicine, The Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jeffrey Jaeger MD

  4. Division of General Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA

    Mark Liebow MD, MPH

  5. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Margaret Plews-Ogan MD, MS

  6. Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Mark D. Schwartz MD

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  1. Angela Jackson MD
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  2. Robert B. Baron MD, MS
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  3. Jeffrey Jaeger MD
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  4. Mark Liebow MD, MPH
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  5. Margaret Plews-Ogan MD, MS
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  6. Mark D. Schwartz MD
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For the Society of General Internal Medicine Health Policy Committee

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Correspondence to Angela Jackson MD.

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Jackson, A., Baron, R.B., Jaeger, J. et al. Addressing the Nation’s Physician Workforce Needs: The Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Recommendations on Graduate Medical Education Reform. J GEN INTERN MED 29, 1546–1551 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-014-2847-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-014-2847-4

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