Medical school faces growing demand, funding shortages

An aging population and increase in chronic illness are raising demand.

By Matt Reinig

Published Nov. 3, 2008

An increased demand for primary care practitioner services across the country has accelerated the need for MU medical graduates and the strain on the School of Medicine.

The MU News Bureau reported a study in June by Jack Colwill, professor emeritus of family and community medicine, which found the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 44,000 family physicians and internists in less than 20 years.

"Missouri ranks 31st in the nation in terms of physicians per population," said Richard Gleba, external relations director for the School of Medicine. "And as a result of physician shortages throughout the country, the Association of American Medical Colleges has called on all medical schools to increase enrollment by 30 percent by 2015."

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has estimated that 108 out of 114 Missouri counties are designated as underserved by physicians.

Gleba said the aging U.S. population and the chronic ailments many people have are a major cause of the increased demand.

"Primary care physicians are in particular need," Gleba said. "And that's due to the demographics in our aging population, 80 percent of chronic illnesses - now which are cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes - diseases commonly associated with aging, are cared for by primary care physicians."

School of Health Professions spokeswoman Cheri Ghan said she is seeing a similar demand.

"There are two major reasons," Ghan said. "One is the aging of society, of course right now the baby boomers. The first baby boomer hit age 60 a couple of years ago. We have a very large population that's moving into the age where they're going to have more health issues."

Ghan also said other chronic conditions not necessarily related to aging contribute to the increased demand for medical graduates.

"And also we have increased chronic conditions," Ghan said. "We have more people with diabetes, more people with obesity issues which cause many other health issues, we have more conditions like autism being diagnosed and all of those require extensive health care."

Gleba also said the medical school is limited in the ways it can meet the increasing demands.

"The school of medicine is limited in the number of students it can take in two ways," Gleba said. "Space. We've had over 1300 students apply for medical school in the last class, we were only able to accept 95. And hundreds of those students we could have accepted if we had the space available."

Some believe the increased demand for medical students has facilitated loan payment options for students.

"There's a push for financial assistance to make paying for medical school more feasible, like making more scholarships available," second year medical student Ashley Millham said. "There's also more incentives and options available for physicians for loan repayment."

Millham said she plans to go into family practice.

Gleba said funding from the state is an issue. He also said the School of Medicine has consistently ranked among the 10 lowest public schools in terms of state funding per medical student.

"We're also limited by funding to be able to provide the teaching resources that those students would need," Gleba said. "We would love to be able to increase our class sizes. We would love to be able to have the resources we need to go ahead and meet that AAMC mandate to increase our class sizes by 30 percent." Gleba says he remains hopeful.

Gleba also said more funding has been sought from the state to increase class sizes, but that the funds have not been granted. He also said the school has raised $105 million through private resources, such as the For All We Call Mizzou donation campaign.