With the economy still shaky and work scarce, it might seem strange to ask whether a job market can actually be too open.
Yet that was precisely what many of the graduates of the U’s School of Medicine found themselves wondering Saturday as they celebrated their commencement.
The physician shortage in Utah might make it easier for many graduates to find a job, but it also means that they will likely bear more responsibility for the state’s health care needs.
Ryan Wilcox, who received his doctorate in internal medicine, said that the shortage would place “more pressure on (physicians) to get everything done in a short amount of time.”
These heavy demands can place strain on physicians’ personal lives.
“It’s a wonderful job, but it also takes a lot from your personal life, so they’re going to have trouble with treating more people,” said Pahresah Roomiany, who also received her doctorate in internal medicine.
The challenges facing physicians in Utah and throughout the rest of the country were the subject of the commencement address delivered by Darrell Kirch, president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“Even though we talk a lot now about giving people medical homes, where people know them and take care of them over time, I’m sorry8212;but a lot of us are feeling medically homeless these days,” he said in his address, urging graduates to focus on bringing justice to the health care system as a whole.
However, creating the sense of justice that Kirch spoke of will be that much more difficult as the U’s medical school prepares for Fall Semester with a class size that has been cut 20 percent8212;a trend that will only exacerbate the physician shortage and create more problems in the long term.
Kim Wirthlin, spokeswoman for the U, said in the Board of Trustees’ March meeting that the school was lobbying for a higher cigarette tax. It would potentially bring in enough funding to reopen the 20 seats lost when the Center for Medicare and Medicaid reduced its own funding by $10 million.
Primarily, patients will bear the brunt of the shortage in the form of diminished care across the board.
It’s a frightening situation from both the patient’s and the provider’s perspective, said Katie Mader, who received a master’s degree in physician assistant studies.
Wilcox stressed the impact on patients, saying, “It’s already hard enough even for patients. They’ll be more frustrated. It’s hard to get an appointment to see the family physician or just to see a doctor and with less physicians it will be a bigger wait for them, harder to get in (and) less time with their physician.”
“I don’t think that there’s an easy solution other than what I think the state legislature needs to do, which is prioritize education across the board,” said Phil Baese, a child psychiatry professor at the U, who called the failure to increase funding for medical education “shortsighted.”
For now, graduates might simply have to accept longer hours and shorter visits with patients, among other things, to meet the demand. Anything less, as Kirch made clear in his address, would constitute a failure to live up to the demands of the profession.
“You not only have an obligation to the patient that’s in your hospital or in your exam room, or your clinic, you have an obligation to all patients collectively to make sure that this health care system is somehow fair,” he said.