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How many HBCU medical schools are there? Will the hospital pay for medical school tuition? How serious is the doctor shortage? Will Xavier University establish a medical school?
Leonardo Seoane, M.D., founding dean of the Xavier Ochsner School of Medicine and executive vice president and chief academic officer of Ochsner Health, discusses reducing the cost of medical school, the importance of diversity in health care, and rural areas. talks about the major challenges and incentives for the healthcare system. So that doctors can work in rural areas. Hosted by AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger.
speaker
- Dr. Leonard Seoane, founding dean of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine. Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer, Ochsner Health
Unger: Hello. Welcome to AMA Update videos and podcasts. Today, we’re going to talk about how Ochsner Health is taking an innovative approach to addressing the physician shortage we’re seeing across health care. Our guest is Dr. Leonard Seoane, founding dean of the Xavier Ochsner School of Medicine and executive vice president and chief academic officer of Ochsner Health, Inc. in New Orleans. I’m Todd Unger, AMA Chief Experience Officer in Chicago. Dr. Soane, thank you for joining us today.
Dr. Theoane: Well, thanks for having me, Todd. And I would like to thank AMA. Thank you for taking the time to talk about this important topic.
Unger: In fact, the physician shortage is one of the biggest issues facing healthcare today, impacting nearly every practice in the country. But before we talk about your efforts to address the problem, why not start with a little background on how your organization is being affected by this problem?
Dr. Theoane: As you know, Todd, the AAMC projects a shortfall of up to 86,000 positions by 2036. And the AAMC produces a report every two years, and that was the most recent one. But it’s not universally felt across the United States, and it’s an uneven impact. And in places like Ochsner’s Gulf South and rural areas, they feel the impact is even greater. This impacts patient access to see a doctor and increases wait times. We feel that it’s affecting competition for physicians, and we’re finding that when we’re recruiting for positions, it’s taking a significant amount of time to fill them.
Unger: Well, this is a very interesting point. Because you hear numbers like 86,000 people worldwide. And as you pointed out, it varies by region. So let’s talk about what can be done to overcome this particular physician shortage. First, please tell me about the Ochsner Physician Scholars Program and other tuition reimbursement programs for physicians.
Dr. Theoane: So we launched the Physician Scholars Program in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic. In Louisiana, there are several things we are acutely aware of regarding the physician shortage. One person is receiving primary care. I know the effects are being felt in many places across the United States. The other one is psychiatry.
And in fact, Mississippi will have the worst physician shortage by 2030, according to a 2030 report. And Louisiana would be the third worst state. Therefore, our region has been particularly hard hit by these shortages.
That’s why the Physician Scholars Program is affiliated with our two medical school partners. One is LSU Health Sciences in Shreveport, the other is home to the Ochsner Clinical School and is affiliated with the University of Queensland, which accepts American children. They spend their first two years of medical school in Brisbane, Australia, and return to Ochsner in New Orleans for their third and fourth years of clinical training. Therefore, if these medical school students practice in primary care or psychiatry anywhere within the Ochsner Health System, we will reimburse their tuition in exchange for their work. That includes Mississippi and Louisiana.
This program has been very successful so far. In fact, in July we hired our first physician from that program, Dr. Mary Curet. She completed her family medicine residency and is returning to practice in rural southwest Louisiana. So excited for her.
Unger: oh. This is a great opportunity for medical students and of course a huge benefit to the local community. Please tell us more about the results obtained from the program so far.
Dr. Theoane: There are currently eight students enrolled in the program, some in medical school and others in residency programs. As I said, there was Mary Curet who joined us in the country. So we’re seeing students appreciate that we’ve removed that financial barrier.
And as we know, the average medical student in the United States graduates with approximately $250,000 worth of medical debt. It grows even more through compound interest. This means that being able to graduate from medical school debt-free and practice in the field of your choice is a win-win.
Unger: Well, the job was clearly successful. And now you’re taking it to the next level and opening your own medical school. So tell us a little bit about that and what you hope to achieve.
Dr. Theoane: Todd, this is very exciting. This is a transformative project. I would say this is a once in a lifetime project. Because this will be transformative for our partner, Xavier University. Xavier University is one of the nation’s leading HBCU universities. And they have a long history. They are about to celebrate 100 years of excellence in STEM and as one of the leaders in admitting African Americans to medical school. That is our university partner.
And of course, Ochsner Health, and probably many of your listeners are familiar with Ochsner Health. Ochsner Health is the largest health system in the Gulf South and an academic medical center with 33 ACGME-accredited residencies and fellowships. We have trained over 360 residents and fellows. By coming together, we can work together to create this new medical school in the United States.
And it’s really necessary. And it is necessary in some ways. If you look at this year’s game, the 2024 game, 25% of the freshman interns attended medical school outside of the United States. Therefore, we need more U.S. medical graduates.
It’s also necessary because when we founded this medical school and took our first classes, Xavier was part of an HBCU, and we’re only the fifth HBCU medical school in the United States. And if we look at physician diversity across the United States, we find that only 5.7% of physicians are African American, even though approximately 14% of the population is African American.
If you look at Hispanics, they make up 19% of the population. We have the fastest growing minority population in the United States. We only account for 6.9% of physicians. Therefore, having HBCUs dedicated to training more Black and Brown physicians is essential to the path to physician diversity in the United States. So we’re very excited about that.
It will be held in downtown New Orleans next to the iconic Superdome in the Bio District. So, as I like to say, it will be transformative for New Orleans, it will be transformative for Xavier and Ochsner, but it will also be transformative for our country, creating a path for black and brown students to become physicians. It will be.
Unger: Wow, building that pipeline yourself is an incredible amount of creativity and effort, and has so many benefits. Let’s talk a little more about medical student costs. But the diversity we are building through our HBCU and IMG contingents needs more opportunities.
Dr. Theoane: One of the news stories we’ve seen over the past few months is this kind of huge philanthropic donation that made tuition free for two medical schools. Would you say that your efforts are part of a broader trend to reduce these barriers, particularly as they relate to the costs of medical school and medical school?
Well, I would say we’re very focused on that. And one of the things we’re doing is finding ways to partner with Black and Brown students and supporting scholarships to remove economic barriers for first-generation immigrants like me. is to look for. That becomes a big barrier. If you think, “I’m going to owe $250,000, where can I get this money?” it can make your future difficult to see. How can I borrow this money?
So we’re very focused on looking at ways that we can provide scholarships to address that. And look, we applaud Bloomberg and the work he did with Mr. Hopkins to make that happen. And we also admire what New York University has done in that area.
Unger: Yeah, pretty incredible. I mean, if you think about all the things that we’re doing to increase the number of students who can go to medical school and, of course, become doctors, what else is there? Do you have a plan for not only you but other health systems as well?
Dr. Theoane: No, I think, look, I hope—well, hopefully we can be a model for other health systems and universities. When I talk to founding deans across the country, I think one of the most difficult hurdles in these partnerships is finding clinical practices and clinical partners for them to collaborate with. And I think this partnership of universities like Xavier University of Louisiana and health systems like Oxford Health coming together to solve the physician workforce crisis.
But he also mentioned the Gulf Coast and the challenges facing tropical storms and hurricanes. But the Gulf Coast also has a great resource, and that is our diversity. This partnership therefore leverages that diversity. And I think other health systems and universities should take a hard look at how they can impact their communities through partnerships like this.
Unger: Dr. Theoane, thank you so much for joining us today and talking about what’s going on at Ochsner. I think you had a problem, took it into your own hands, built a pipeline, and made a lot of creative changes to solve this problem. The AMA is also working to address the physician shortage, and we encourage you to support our efforts by becoming an AMA member at ama-assn.org/join.
That’s it for today’s episode. We’ll be back with another AMA update soon. Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thank you for joining us today. Please be careful.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this video are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the AMA.
