I was there and I came away with this analysis.
1. Supply of radiation oncologists has grown rapidly, outpacing predictions by Dr. Smith's JCO paper.
2. Demand for radiation oncology services has been flat. Despite an aging population and more cancer, there is decreasing rad onc services utilization that balances that out.
3. Ben Smith had predicted a rise in demand starting in 2010 with his paper. It never happened. He projects that demand will start to rise in 2015. It looked to me like the demand growth on his chart was just shifted on the x-axis to the right 5 years.
4. If there was an undersupply, we could improve efficiency with improvements in EHR, mid level support, etc.
5. There is nobody that regulates residency position numbers. It wasn't explicitly stated to my recollection, but was clear from the red journal fiasco that the RRC and ACGME don't view this as part of their functions. In addition, Dr. Zeitman's talk took a very neutral stance, essentially that data is imperfect and applicants can self regulate as they did in radiology.
6. There are significant threats to radiation oncology demand, especially the reimbursement issues discussed in this thread.
The radiologist on the panel discussed their job market with data from the 2010s. But this happened in the 2000s, and what was analyzed was the reaction to the decline in their job market. The reaction from medical students was 5-10 years after their job market collapsed. This means 5-10 years of radiology residents got screwed.
I took away from this:
1. Supply has outpaced demand for at least the past 5 years.
2. Future demand is very uncertain with very significant threats to our field. Demand has been flat over the past 5 hears.
3. Thus, I would propose a moratorium on growth of residency positions for at least the next 5 years to reassess whether demand has begun to grow again. This would avoid the job market disasters as in Canada and in radiology.
4. Given the current likely oversupply based on surveys and increasing number of fellowships, and the ability to improve productivity for mild undersupply, there would be minimal risk in slowing growth at this time. There seems to be no willpower to make that happen.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
ASTRO panel session on US rad onc labor market
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire