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First-Year Medical School Enrollment Increased By 2 Percent in 2009
Data released by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) suggests that first-year enrollment in U.S. medical schools increased by 2 percent to nearly 18,400 students in 2009, an uptick driven largely by four new institutions seating their first students, AHA News Now reports. The new medical schools include Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami; Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, Pa.; Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine in El Paso; and the University of Central Florida College of Medicine in Orlando, whose inaugural classes added 189 students to the entering class tally. In addition, 12 existing medical schools expanded their 2009 class size by 7 percent or more. Although the number of women attending medical school has increased steadily since 1992, men still represented 52 percent of new enrollees. This year's entering class also had the largest number of African-American enrollees since 1999 with1,312 African-American students, representing 7 percent of the total student population and reflecting a 4 percent increase from the proportion of African-American enrollees in 2008. Meanwhile, the number of Hispanic and American Indian applicants decreased by 1 percent and 5 percent, respectively, compared with 2008. In addition, the AAMC found that the pool of medical school applicants "remained stable," with a slight increase from 42,231 applications in 2008 to 42,269 in 2009. Applicants included 22,014 men and 20,252 women. Early indicators suggest that the applicant pool for next year will continue to grow, as more than 67,000 individuals sat for the Medical College Admissions Test between January and August of this year, a nearly 3 percent increase over 2008. Although the AAMC's president and chief executive officer acknowledges that medical schools are making efforts to meet the demand for more physicians, he cautions that without an increase in residency training slots, a shortage of between 124,000 and 159,000 U.S. physicians is expected by 2025. He suggests that policy-makers should fund expansion of graduate medical education positions, noting that none of the current reform bills include provisions to do so (AHA News Now, 10/20/09; Peck, MedPage Today, 10/20/09; Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare, 10/20/09 [subscription required]; AAMC release, 10/20/09).