To the editor:
As an emergency medicine resident in Milwaukee, and a native of Seymour, I read with great interest the article “Medical residency training center proposed for former hospital site.”
I commend the city’s work along with those of the developer and Dr. Jonathan Boy. Since 1997, the number of federally funded residency spots has held still, while the number of medical students had markedly increased. Increasing the number of residency spots is vital to fill the void of physicians in our state.
With this said, when reading the story I became concerned. In the article, Mayor Marquardt suggests a “residency training center” will bring medical students to Shawano. Unless medical students will be in Shawano from the Medical College of Wisconsin – Green Bay or Central Wisconsin campus, a residency training center would not bring medical students, it would bring residents. Residents are physicians who have completed medical school and are completing additional training to specialize in something such as pediatrics, internal medicine or family medicine.
There are at least three major flaws with the information provided thus far. First, the article does not mention who is paying for these residents who have an estimated cost of $150,000 per year per resident. Second, residents see patients in both the office and inpatient setting; does this mean the old medical center will continue to serve as a hospital or will the residents see patients at the new medical center? Lastly, most residencies are associated with an academic medical center or hospital system. Is this program going to be associated with the Medical College of Wisconsin or ThedaCare or run completely independent, which would only greatly increase costs?
Again, it may be that this project is in the early phases, but based on the information published this project is not well thought out. I am concerned that the driving force behind this effort is economic and not to improve the health of the population of Shawano and surrounding communities. If this is true, I would proceed cautiously.
Bradley R. Burmeister, M.D.
Milwaukee
