Abortion ban states see steep drop in OB/GYN residency applicants

[In It to Win It]

Abortion ban states see steep drop in OB/GYN residency applicants

States that have enacted abortion bans saw a 10.5 percent drop in applicants for obstetrics and gynecology residencies in 2023 from the previous year, according to new data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

That decline carries a potential long-term impact on the availability of doctors to care for pregnant people and deliver babies across a large swath of the South and Midwest because medical residents often choose to stay and work where they trained.

"Everybody is saying they knew this would happen, but this is concerning," said Atul Grover, who leads the association's Research and Action Institute to examine the most pressing issues affecting American health care. He has a message to policymakers: "You may be discouraging some of the best candidates from coming to your state to train."

When it came time to submit applications to OB/GYN training programs last fall, Lucy Brown decided against storied medical residencies in Texas and Florida. Nor, to her disappointment, would the Indiana medical student be training close to her family in Kentucky, a region that is losing obstetricians even as its maternal mortality crisis worsens.

[roamer65]

1. It will accelerate.

They will go to the blue states.

[paleotn]

2. F 'em. It's terribe for the good people in those states but....

the majority of voters there voted for this shit. Let them lie in it. It's crap like this that keeps pushing me towards the "two state solution" to US politics.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Of course. These are Darwin states now.

Boil some water.

[Freethinker65]

4. Who would go through years of study and training to not be allowed to do their job?

Perhaps breeding states can have their state schools, now not allowed to teach much else, teach human animal husbandry. They can offer degrees in the study of day to day care, selective breeding, and raising of human livestock?

[gratuitous]

5. If you're lucky, you don't do your job

The evil choice is between risking jail by following best medical practices or allowing your patient to suffer needlessly from wholly treatable conditions and maybe die. Oddly, doctors aren't beating a path to practice in these states.

[Carlitos Brigante]

6. In Dumbfuckistan, the Baby Jesus is the only doctor you'll ever need. nt

[Peppertoo]

7. Not surprising nm

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Abortion bans are repelling the nation's future doctors

THE HEALTH 202
Abortion bans are repelling the nation’s future doctors

Analysis by Julie Rovner
with research by McKenzie Beard and Rachana Pradhan

May 13, 2024 at 8:04 a.m. EDT

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