Redesigning the market for American medical residencies

 The medical community has spent a good deal of effort over the past two years conferring about difficulties in the transition from medical school to residency, i.e. in transiting from what is called undergraduate medical education (in medical school, recognized with a degree) to graduate medical education (working in a hospital, recognized by Board certification in some medical specialty).  

The resulting document, below, represents a lot of work by a lot of people, and is worth a close look. (It's long: 276 pages, three dozen or so more or less specific recommendations, public comments, etc.). 

I'll have more to say about some specifics in future posts, in due time. 

The Coalition for Physician Accountability’s Undergraduate Medical Education-Graduate Medical Education Review Committee (UGRC): Recommendations for Comprehensive Improvement of the UME-GME Transition

"Overview: In 2020, the Coalition for Physician Accountability (Coalition) formed a new committee to examine the transition from undergraduate medical education (UME) to graduate medical education (GME). The UME-GME Review Committee (the “UGRC” or the “Committee”) was charged with the task of recommending solutions to identified challenges in the transition. These challenges are well known, but the complex nature of the transition together with the reality that no single entity has responsibility over the entire ecosystem has perpetuated the problems and thwarted attempts at reform.

"Using deliberate and thoughtful methods, the UGRC spent 10 months exploring, unpacking, discussing, and debating all aspects of the UME-GME transition. The Committee envisioned a future ideal state, performed a rootcause analysis of the identified challenges, repeatedly sought stakeholder input, explored the literature, sought innovations being piloted across the country, and generated a preliminary set of potential solutions to the myriad problems associated with the transition. Initial recommendations were widely released in April 2021, and feedback was obtained from organizational members of the Coalition as well as interested stakeholders through a public  call for comment. This feedback was instrumental to refining, altering, and improving the recommendations into their final form. The UGRC also responded to feedback by consolidating similar recommendations, organizing them into more cogent themes, and sequencing them to guide implementation. "