Psychiatrists Urged to Fight Threat to Graduate Medical Education

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 APA is urging its members to contact their U.S. senators and representatives to register their oppostion to a plan that would save money in the Medicare program by slashing the funds Medicare pays to support graduate medical education throughout the country. Raised as one strategy in Congress's contentious debt-reduction negotiations, the cuts to teaching hospitals that train residents in primary care and specialties such as psychiatry could total between $14 billion and $60 billion over 10 years. APA emphasizes that such cuts would seriously jeopardize "the country's ability to care for an aging population and close a projected physician shortfall." 

APA members can call their senators and representatives using APA's toll-free hotline at (866) 727-4894 and leave a message urging them to oppose deficit reduction that guts funds for graduate medical education. 

Read more about Medicare issues affecting graduate medical education and patient care in Psychiatric News at      http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/5/15.1.full and http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/45/10/15.full.