Resident & Student Focus

(06/02/2009)  --  June 2 is a big day for new family physicians who could use some help getting their educational loans paid back and are seeking a unique service opportunity. Of a total of $300 million allocated to the National Health Service Corps, or NHSC, under the American and Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009, some $200 million is slated to go to the NHSC Loan Repayment Program, or LRP. Starting today, physicians can apply for the NHSC LRP funds. More

(05/27/2009)  --  A report from the nonprofit research organization RAND Corp. and the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, says that new recommendations to further limit the work hours of medical residents would cost the nation's teaching facilities about $1.6 billion a year to hire additional personnel to fill in for residents coming off work shifts. That's a high price to pay for the uncertain effects that adopting the recommendations would have on reducing fatigue-related medical errors in many clinical settings, say Academy leaders and other medical education experts. More

(05/22/2009)  --  The 18,000-member National Rural Health Association, or NRHA, is cultivating its own "farm team" -- a new student constituency group for medical students and other trainees for health careers who would like to practice in rural areas. More

(05/13/2009)  --  Like dogwood in the spring, the Duke University Family Medicine Residency in Durham, N.C., is blooming -- just two years after the residency's faculty and administrators completely redesigned the program to emphasize community-based medicine and other innovative models of care. More

(04/02/2009)  --  The National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC, are seeking comments on proposed changes to the annual "Scramble," during which graduating medical students and other applicants who didn't match to their desired residency choices during the main residency Match can apply for remaining unfilled residency positions. More

(04/01/2009)  --  The AAFP is going to bat for the Stanislaus Family Medicine Residency Program at Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Calif., after CMS decided to stop supporting the residency with funds for graduate medical education and demanded repayment of more than $19 million in Medicare payments to the facility. CMS has given no regulatory justification for its actions, which could increase health care costs and hurt patients' access to care, says the Academy. More

(03/30/2009)  --  Despite exhaustive negotiations by multiple stakeholders, the New York Medical College Brooklyn-Queens Family Medicine Residency Program has closed permanently, retroactive to Feb. 28. That news came earlier this month, after a proposed new sponsoring hospital and the New York State Department of Health, or DOH, failed to reach agreement on funding to cover the costs of operating the program at the projected new site. More