June 2002
Volume 66 |
Number 6
|
| |
FAER REPORT
|
| Private Practices
and FAER: A Case of Mutual Need |
John B. Neeld, Jr., M.D.
Events of the past decade have had a profoundly negative impact
on the nation's academic anesthesiology departments, yet this
has been largely ignored by the private practice community despite
the long-term adverse consequences for each of us.
This article will review the importance of our academic departments
to the specialty, the problems they currently encounter and will
suggest the role private practices must play in sustaining our
academic core.
The prestige and growth our specialty enjoyed during the last
half of the 20th century was directly linked to the excellence
of our academic departments. It was there that new knowledge was
developed (the hallmark of a profession), that medical students
were recruited by observing the excitement and importance of our
daily practices and where every anesthesiologist received the
training that has allowed us the success we currently enjoy. Despite
their importance in our lives and careers, our training programs
generally asked little in return from their graduates. This situation
must change.
The current problem academic centers face has multiple causes:
1. The reduction in residency recruitment caused by a national
emphasis on primary care coupled with an inaccurate perception
that opportunities in anesthesiology were diminishing
2. Increased departmental service demands while resident numbers
were reduced, forcing faculty to forego research and education
time to provide clinical services
3. Decreased reimbursement for services, reducing the ability
of the clinical practice to support research
4. The decision by many faculty, faced with a reduction in the
resources available for teaching and research and an abundance
of private practice opportunities, to enter private practice.
As a result of these factors, our teaching centers have an inadequate
number of mentors for young scientists and inadequate resources
to attract their best and brightest graduates to an academic career.
Without charismatic teachers and innovative researchers, who will
attract the caliber of medical students we hope to recruit to
our practices?
It is in the best interest of private practice groups to provide
the assistance required to solve this problem. The solution will
not be quick or inexpensive, but it can and must be accomplished.
The greatest need is for increased funds, which will support
more young faculty in the early stages of their research and teaching
careers. The best vehicle for this support is the Foundation for
Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER). Since its inception
in 1986, FAER has funded 400 research projects in 35 states. A
survey of FAER recipients published in Anesthesiology in
1998 (volume 88, pages 519-524) revealed that 96 percent of FAER
award recipients continued in academic careers, that the average
recipient served as a mentor to four new investigators and that
FAER recipients were very successful in obtaining subsequent research
funding from other sources.
Despite its enviable record of success in developing academic
leaders and our very real need to increase workforce numbers in
the specialty, FAER's support from individual physicians and practice
groups actually declined in 2001 to only $65,440, about 4 percent
of FAER's total budget.
Private practice groups must do much more if our academic centers
are to have the means to recruit and educate an adequate number
of anesthesiologists to resolve the provider shortage. Think of
the impact if each group were to annually contribute only $100
per physician to FAER! Surely each of us owes our specialty this
much support.
| |
|
John
B. Neeld, Jr., M.D., is Chair, Department of Anesthesiology,
Northside Hospital and Northside Anesthesiology Consultants,
Atlanta, Georgia. He was ASA President in 1999. |
|
return to top
|