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Q&A
CUNY Medicine's efforts to address doctor shortages in underserved areas
0:43:15
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178 sec
Dr. Green explains CUNY School of Medicine's commitment to addressing doctor shortages in underserved areas and their strategies for increasing their impact.
- The school's primary focus is on areas with deep educational and healthcare disparities
- They are working on building pipelines into underserved communities
- A major limitation is the availability of clerkship spots for student training
- The school has increased partnerships to provide more training opportunities in safety net hospitals
- 52% of graduates go into primary care, and almost 40% work in health professional shortage areas
- Increasing class size could significantly reduce the physician deficit in New York City, potentially by up to 20%
Eric Dinowitz
0:43:15
So I'm interest interested to know if CUNY Medicine has any role or any part or it's part whether it's part of your curriculum or part of your government affairs team, that does the that does any work or makes any efforts to try to staff up in the doctor shortage areas, both geographic locations and the medical fields where there are shortage areas?
Carmen Renée Green
0:43:38
Yeah.
0:43:39
Great question.
0:43:41
So, let me begin with the fact that, you know, our commitment yesterday, today and tomorrow is the underserved.
0:43:49
And as the dean, when I came in, I said our primary area that we're gonna focus on are those where we they they really need us, right?
0:43:57
They need us the most.
0:43:58
Where there are deep educational and healthcare disparities because we believe that we're the difference.
0:44:04
And we can be the difference that actually is the exemplar.
0:44:08
So hence, why we're really working at building pipelines into those communities.
0:44:16
Our limitation, quite frankly, has been clerkship spots.
0:44:22
Spots where our students can train.
0:44:25
And we've been actively working on that.
0:44:27
We've actually increased that significantly, in the 3 years that I've been here.
0:44:34
And we've gotten really wonderful partners.
0:44:36
So we kind of think of ourselves as the people who educate the students, who will go into these safety net hospitals like you've described.
0:44:44
And then, as far as further training.
0:44:46
And then, come back and stay in their communities.
0:44:49
And actually, the data is pretty clear.
0:44:51
That 75% of our students, in comparison to the other New York City Schools, stay in New York.
0:44:57
It's almost a twofold difference.
0:45:00
52% of our students go into primary care, which is what area that is the most desperately needed.
0:45:07
And almost 40% go into health professional shortage areas.
0:45:11
Now, your question is provocative, right?
0:45:15
It's provocative in the fact that, hey, well, there you go.
0:45:19
Is provocative in that we can do more.
0:45:26
How do we do more?
0:45:28
We can do more by increasing our class size.
0:45:31
We've done some, economic assessments.
0:45:36
And for instance, if we increased doubled our class size or increased it by 2 and a half fold over time, you know, you can't just, you know, start, ramping it up, without being thoughtful about it.
0:45:54
But that it can actually We can actually decrease the physician deficit in New York City significantly.
0:46:00
Like upward to upwards to 20%.
0:46:04
But we need to have the spots.
0:46:05
And we need to have we need to have the spots in regard the infrastructure in place as it relates to the medical school and then the clinical clerkship spots, if that
Eric Dinowitz
0:46:13
makes sense.