Has been updated: 16 A few minutes ago Release date: 16 A few minutes ago
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/I3BBWY5SWRH5FMNAQF4PF3DRO4.jpg)
Alaska faces a physician shortage. In December 2023, the Health Resources and Services Administration ranked Alaska 48th in meeting primary health care needs (21.85%), 22nd in meeting dental needs (34.98%), and 48th in meeting mental health needs (11.90%).
For more than 50 years, Alaska WWAMI Medical Education (a medical school affiliated with the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Washington School of Medicine) has played a vital role in educating and training Alaska’s future physicians. Alaska WWAMI’s class size recently increased to 30 students enrolled per year, but that alone will not solve Alaska’s physician shortage problem.
Reasons for GME expansion
To attract more physicians to practice in Alaska, we need to increase graduate medical education (GME) opportunities.
GME is a necessary next step in a physician’s professional education after medical school and is required in all states before they are eligible to receive unrestricted medical licensure.
Alaska requires a minimum of two years of GME, including residency, internship, and fellowship. However, Alaska has the lowest number of GME programs, number of GME trainees, and ratio of medical residents to state population in the nation. We believe this shortage is a significant barrier to addressing the state’s health care needs.
The connection between GME and local doctors
Nationwide, approximately 1 in 7 physicians participate in GME programs. These trainees are responsible for 20% of hospitalized patient care and 40% of uninsured patient care, contributing $8.4 billion in patient care annually.
Also consider that resident retention rates typically remain high in the communities in which they train: For example, approximately 70% of Alaska family medicine residents remain in Alaska after completing their training, and this program alone trains more than 27% of the state’s family medicine physicians.
Where do we go from here?
Although federal funding for GME is crucial, Alaska is one of only seven states that does not use Medicaid to fund GME, and no federal employers such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Health Resources and Services Administration, or the Department of Defense are seen offering GME jobs in Alaska.
Therefore, expanding GME in Alaska requires partnerships across systems of care and their respective funding sources. To this end, the University of Washington hosted the WWAMI GME Summit in Anchorage earlier this year to explore options, resulting in three clear recommendations for the state. First, Alaska should establish a GME Council to articulate the future vision and process for GME expansion in Alaska. Second, Alaska Medicaid should support GME and inform stakeholders and policy leaders of the importance of GME expansion in Alaska. Third, Alaska should establish a multidisciplinary GME teaching medical center.
We are enthusiastic and optimistic that Anchorage was the location of 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 access, quality, and outcomes of care, a goal we all share.
Dr. Alexander von Hafften He is the first psychiatrist to train and work in Alaska, having completed a WWAMI residency in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1990. He returned to Alaska in 1993 and has been actively involved in undergraduate and graduate medical education ever since.
Lindsay Rodis She is the spokesperson for the Alaska WWAMI School of Medical Education and since January 2023 has been featuring stories of students, faculty and leaders across the state illustrating the impact of medical education at the local, state and regional levels.
Opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a wide range of viewpoints. To submit an article for consideration, email comments(at)adn.comPosts under 200 words Email: or Click here to submit from any web browserRead the complete guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
