AMA House of Delegates
AMA meeting: Delegates respond to rising student debt
■ The Association wants medical schools to tell students why their tuition is going up and whether incentives were involved in their loans.
By Emily Berry — Posted July 7, 2008
- ANNUAL MEETING 2008
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Chicago -- The AMA House of Delegates is asking medical schools to deal more openly with medical students when it comes to student loans, tuition hikes and the schools' spending.
The house agreed to support medical school policies that require financial aid officers to disclose any incentives they have received from lenders in exchange for designation as a "preferred lender."
Medical students need to know when the people advising them have a stake in the lending process, said Peter Ragusa, a medical student at the University of Minnesota and an alternate delegate from the Medical Student Section.
Being pushed to borrow from a lender who isn't offering the best terms isn't just a matter of a few more dollars of interest, he said. "Medical debt is a major factor in specialty choice."
The AMA will also support standardized disclosures by medical schools explaining the reasons for tuition increases and the use of income generated by them.
Supporters said the schools shouldn't see medical students as cash cows who can be tapped to fund schools' needs beyond the cost of educating them.
Meanwhile, the house asked the AMA to study potential solutions to reducing medical students' debt.
"The medical student debt crisis imposes great strain on their psychological, economic welfare and also greatly restricts their choices in specialties or areas of medicine upon graduation," said Verner Stillner, MD, an alternate delegate for the Alaska State Medical Assn. and a psychiatrist from Juneau, Alaska. "We strongly support the AMA pursuing long-term solutions in this crisis."
Relief for growing debt cannot come soon enough, medical students told committee members.
"When I graduate, I will have accumulated nearly a quarter of a million dollars in debt, and that's from a state school," Ragusa said.
The average debt load carried by doctors leaving medical school reached $140,000 in 2007. Debt is already driving some prospective students out of medicine, or away from primary care specialties, delegates testified.
