There may be a shortage of 7,000 physician specialists spanning 19 specialties in Florida by 2025, according to a new study commissioned by the Teaching Hospital Council of Florida and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida.
General surgery, rheumatology, thoracic surgery and psychiatry will be hit the hardest.
The study found that Florida ranks close to the bottom in terms of residency training slots compared to the rest of the nation. In order to solve the physician shortage, the state will have to add 13,568 more residency positions by 2025.
"Florida has fallen behind in training enough physicians to meet our citizens' growing need for quality health care," Steven Sonenreich, chairman of the Teaching Hospital Council of Florida and president and CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, said in a statement. "This study provides a road map of the demand for physicians and can serve as a benchmark for Florida's long-term planning for graduate medical residency training programs."
The study sampled over 16,600 physicians currently practicing and found that where they did their residency had a big impact on where they chose to practice - 81 percent of the physicians who conducted their residencies in Florida decided to practice there. But the state will lose two-thirds of its medical school graduates if more residency positions aren't created.
But that may become a reality in the near future. In 2013, Governor Rick Scott proposed $80 million in recurring funds for a new Medicaid residency program and in his 2015 and 2016 budget package he proposed increasing graduate medical education funding by an additional $7.5 million per year.
In addition, teaching hospital officials are lobbying for financial incentives to hospitals that create and maintain residency slots in specialties with shortages.
