N.J. group has suggestions for doctor shortage

A task force convened three years ago by the New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals unveiled a series of recommendation for the physician shortage issue at events Tuesday at Cooper University Hospital in Camden and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.

Among the suggestions from the statewide Physician Workforce Policy Task Force are: establishing a state “Center for Medical and Health Workforce Planning;” the infusion of new state and federal support; and a revision of existing programs over the next decade in order to forestall "an unprecedented shortfall" in the number of physicians available to treat patients.

The full report can be obtained at www.njcth.org.

“A physician shortage crisis is right around the corner in New Jersey if we do not take immediate steps to change course,” said Dr. J. Richard Goldstein, president and CEO, New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals. “National health reform, while laudable and needed, will only work to accelerate the time when there simply will not be enough doctors to serve New Jersey's adults and children.”

According to the task force’s report, New Jersey is facing significant future shortages in both primary care and several specialty areas. By 2020, the panel projects a shortfall of over 2,800 additional physicians beyond the current physician graduate medical education production pipeline, representing a 12 percent gap in the physician supply versus the likely population demand for services. The shortage consists of approximately 1,000 primary care physicians and 1,800 specialists.

Cooper Health System is working with Rowan University in Glassboro to establish a new four-year medical school in South Jersey — and the first new medical school in the state in the past 30 years.

That project was included in a series of stories about the shortage of family physicians locally and nationally I wrote back in September.

“New Jersey's medical schools and teaching hospitals can do the job, but we cannot do this alone,” said Dr. Thomas A. Cavalieri, dean of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, N.J. “This report lays out a road map that those of us in higher education as well as those who are public policy makers can follow.”