Medical residency applications down “in states where abortion is illegal or significantly restricted”

A new report from KFF Health News of data from the Association of American Medical Colleges says that “for the second year running, fewer graduating U.S. medical students applied for residency training in states with abortion bans or restrictions than in the previous year.”

The report states that since many doctors choose to reside permanently in the area in which they do their residency, this trend could significantly limit the number of doctors in states like Georgia for decades to come — and exacerbate the current dearth of doctors in rural areas.

The report outlines a persistent reason cited for the shift away from abortion-ban states was that the medical education received there is sub-par, at least in obstetrics and gynecology. Doctors in these states learn the techniques used for abortion — which are also used to treat miscarriages and other conditions — but they have to leave the state to train on them.

“Brian Kemp’s abortion ban has made it dangerous to practice medicine or even have a child in Georgia,” said DPG spokesperson Ellie Schwartz. “As Brian Kemp’s political choices repel qualified doctors from Georgia, rather than admit a mistake, he’s content to let Georgia’s women and families suffer the consequences.”

Georgia’s 6-week abortion ban is one of the strictest in the country.

These students’ concerns included their ability to practice medicine, but also their own health and that of their partners. As Stulberg continued, “people don’t feel safe potentially having their own pregnancies living in those states.”    

Read the story from WABE below:

WABE: Abortion bans in Georgia and other states are repelling the nation’s future doctors
Julie Rovner, KFF News; 5/21/2024

• Ash Panakam is about to graduate from Harvard Medical School. She’s from Georgia and always assumed she would return to the South for her residency. But the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the nationwide right to abortion changed everything.
  
  
• “Ultimately I shifted my selection pretty drastically,” she said. “I was struggling to find a residency program in the South where I could still get the training I consider fundamental to the skill set needed to be an OB/GYN.” Instead of going home to Georgia, she’s headed to Pittsburgh to start her medical residency this summer. Panakam has plenty of company.
  
  
• For the second year running, fewer graduating U.S. medical students applied for residency training in states with abortion bans or restrictions than in the previous year, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
  
  
• It’s not just obstetrician-gynecologists; the decline crosses specialties, including those that don’t serve primarily pregnant patients. That could threaten the future of the overall medical workforce in states with bans, because doctors tend to locate permanently where they do residencies.
  
  
• “The geographic misalignment between where the needs are and where people are choosing to go is really problematic,” said Debra Stulberg, who chairs the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago. “We don’t need people further concentrating in urban areas where there’s already good access.”
  
  
• The concerns of graduating medical students extend beyond their ability to practice medicine; they’re also worried about their own health, or that of their partners. “People don’t feel safe potentially having their own pregnancies living in those states,” Stulberg said.
  
  
• Residents in states where abortion is banned will still get training in abortion techniques, which are also used for miscarriages and other conditions. But to train on the procedures they’ll have to leave the state. And some students worry the training won’t be sufficient.
  
  
• “I would rather have not become an OB/GYN than not be trained as a good one,” said Laura Potter, who is moving from medical school at the University of California at Davis to residency at Mass General Brigham in Boston.