Popping the medical education bubble before it forms: It’s about dollars and sense*

Abstract

Headlines have previously acknowledged the risk of a “bubble and crash” phenomenon in the physician workforce pipeline. A growing number of medical career dissatisfiers, including emotional and physical burnout, loss of autonomy and burdensome regulations, compound the longstanding fundamental issue of the prohibitive direct and opportunity costs associated with medical training. For U.S. medical education and, in turn, healthcare to remain robust and high-quality, creative solutions are needed to address the untenable physician debt-to-income ratios and to ensure not only that the quantity and quality of medical school aspirants remains favorable to the profession, but that the profession remains responsible to its future members. Creating fiscally healthy physicians is a societal imperative.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes on contributors

Ryan Grant, MD, is an Instructor of Neurosurgery at Yale University and Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences at the Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. He completed his neurosurgical residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and medical school at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. He completed his undergraduate (B.S.) and graduate studies (M.S.) at the University of Michigan.

Neha Vapiwala, MD, is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education in Radiation Oncology and Assistant Dean of Students at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Vapiwala earned a dual Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Hispanic Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 3 years. Upon graduation, she worked as a high school science and math teacher in Maryland prior to matriculating at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as a Twenty-first Century Scholar.