By James P. Orlando, Ed.D, and Shaden Eldakar-Hein, MD

The recent report, “Medical school impact on the primary care physician shortage in Pennsylvania,” released by a research arm of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, merits a local perspective.

We, at St. Luke’s University Health Network, feel qualified and compelled to share our viewpoint with your readers based on our vast experience in recruiting and training young physicians at the region’s first and only Lehigh Valley-based four-year medical school.

Health care systems must take more responsibility for cultivating, nourishing and retaining new physicians locally to address the alarming shortage of primary care providers. This is a model St. Luke’s has successfully pioneered.

In 2018, St. Luke’s launched Pennsylvania’s first accredited family medicine rural residency training program in Carbon County and will be starting a new psychiatry rural residency training this year. We now prepare a total of 20 new doctors across Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties to identify and meet the medical needs of these often-underserved communities, for which we have gained national recognition.

According to “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2018 to 2033,” the most recent update from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the U.S. is expected to face a shortage of primary care physicians ranging from 21,400 to 55,200 by 2033.

Since 2016, St. Luke’s has introduced more medical students to primary care careers to help stem the ebbing supply of these essential doctors who are critical to meeting our community’s health care needs. We established a four-year regional medical school in partnership with Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

We include primary care role models and experiences early in the curriculum to highlight the importance of primary care in the health of the individual and community.

Bringing undergraduate medical education to our area ultimately leads a larger number of physicians to stay here to take care of our aging community.

Since our medical school’s inception, we have awarded $11.8 million in scholarships to help offset the high cost of medical education for these high academic achievers who dream to become physicians.

About one-third of our newly minted doctors enter St. Luke’s 20-plus physician residency training programs. A handful each year “match” into our family medicine, internal medicine, OB-GYN or psychiatry residencies.

In response to the 2015 state-sponsored report on the physician shortage in Pennsylvania, we more than doubled our residency programs, many of them in primary care.

Prior reports have also pointed to the low number of postgraduate primary care training positions in Pennsylvania or the U.S.

Today we prepare over 400 physicians annually, 216 of which specialize in family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology, three times more than just five years ago. And, nearly half of our primary care residency graduates annually choose to stay at St Luke’s after completing their postgraduate training, compared to 40% of all active Pennsylvania physicians who also completed their residency in Pennsylvania.

But increasing the numbers of primary care providers is only part of the solution to addressing the shortage.

We must train all health care students and residents in a learning environment that is innovative, future-oriented, patient-centered and that focuses on promoting the well-being of the physicians as well as their patients.

Researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas Project, which uses Medicare and Medicaid data to analyze health care outcomes, found that, “Physicians who train at institutions with better, more patient-centered and efficient care will be better prepared to lead the transformation of health care when they are in practice.”

To quote Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, we must “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

This strategy is a playbook for our medical education programs that addresses the primary care physician shortage while emphasizing lifestyle medicine, wellness and other advanced, community-based education for all trainees to ensure they are prepared to serve now and in the future.

St. Luke’s commitment to preparing the new doctors, who will likely be taking good care of us in the not-too-distant future, has never been stronger or more focused.

It’s in our DNA, and it’s our passion as we strive to promote health in our community, one patient and one provider at a time.

James P. Orlando, Ed.D, is chief graduate medical education officer for St. Luke’s University Health Network and Shaden Eldakar-Hein, MD, is senior associate dean for Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine.