The Travesty of Too Few Residencies

I am constantly amazed that somehow we have fewer residency spots than we have medical students. How the hell is that possible! Please read this NY Times article but do so before you eat so you don’t vomit all over yourself.

Dr. Cromblin is one of as many as 10,000 chronically unmatched doctors in the United States, people who graduated from medical school but are consistently rejected from residency programs. The National Resident Matching Program promotes its high match rate, with 94 percent of American medical students matching into residency programs last year on Match Day, which occurs annually on the third Friday in March. But the match rate for Americans who study at medical schools abroad is far lower, with just 61 percent matching into residency spots.

Are those that don’t match bad doctors? No. Are they better educated than midlevels? Yes. And yet we let this travesty continue. Here is the weirdest part: residencies are using some “filters” to now pick people. WTF? Where it the fairness and science behind that?

The worst part of this problem is the constant reminder of how we face a physician shortage:

Last year, the Association of American Medical Colleges released a study that found that the country would face a shortage of 54,100 to 139,000 physicians by 2033, a prospect made all the more alarming as hospitals confront the possibility of fighting future crises similar to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet each year thousands of graduates emerge from medical schools with a virtually useless M.D. or D.O.; without residency experience, they do not qualify for licensure in any state.

This physician shortage is the marketing plan behind the AANP and the midlevel explosion. How dare we let others who are lesser educated and lesser trained (LELTs) claim to be “the same as doctors” all the while letting graduated medical students not find a residency.

Where are the physician organizations on this? The ACP, AMA, AAP, the AAFP, and so on? Why have they not used ALL their surplus in money to fix this? These doctors are stuck in purgatory while our leaders do nothing to help. I am disgusted.

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