In a big development for students studying medicine in California, the University of California at Davis Medical School has decided to fast track the training process, enabling the students to practice medicine after three years of completion of their training.
According to the University officials, the American Medical Association (AMA) has made a five-year grant of USD 1 million, which will allow the medical students to complete their training course earlier.
Now, the students will no more have to go through the traditional four-year training period before taking over as primary care physicians.
Dr. Tonya Fancher, director of Accelerated Competency-based Education in Primary Care (ACE-PC), hailed the development saying that the new curriculum is designed in such a way that it will expedite the completion of the training process by excluding electives, summer vacations and the residency search.
ACE-PC is a program that aims at making family medicine more attractive for young medical professionals. The fast-tracked course could reduce around USD 60,000 education debt of a medical student.
'The curriculum is designed to get primary care physicians out in the field faster, said Fancher while adding, 'There is a huge crisis of primary care physicians.'
The AMA and the Association of American Medical Colleges have always backed redesigning of medical education by introducing three-year medical schools. Texas, Georgia and New York are already running schools with these accelerated programs.
The need for primary care is increasing day-by-day after the launch the Affordable Care Act. Following the launch of the Obamacare, more and more people are getting covered under health insurance.
