Washington, D.C., December 17, 2003 - The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) today announced the establishment of a new Center for Workforce Studies. Edward Salsberg, current executive director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the School of Public Health, University of Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), will be the new director of the center. Mr. Salsberg will lead the association's effort to assess the supply, demand, use, and distribution of physicians in this country, increase the collection of relevant data on their numbers, and help determine the AAMC's future agenda regarding this issue.

The supply of U.S. physicians has been the subject of debate for many years. In 1997, the AAMC joined with the American Medical Association, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, the American Osteopathic Association, the Association of Academic Health Centers and the National Medical Association to raise concerns about the possibility of an oversupply of doctors by the year 2000. But that surplus did not materialize by the new millennium. In fact, several recent studies suggest substantial physician shortages will develop over the next 20 years. In 2002, the AAMC revised its outlook and adopted a more flexible view that acknowledged neither a surplus nor a shortage.

In September of this year, the federal Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME), in response to the findings of a study it commissioned, acknowledged that the country might be on the verge of a serious shortage of physicians. COGME endorsed a recommendation that medical schools increase enrollments by 15 percent over the next decade to help offset a future shortfall of doctors and that graduate medical education positions be increased to accommodate the increase in U.S. medical school graduates.

As a result of this growing concern about a potential physician shortage, the AAMC will devote more attention through its new unit to analyzing and monitoring the physician supply, and determining what role the association should play in assisting the nation's medical schools, teaching hospitals and specialty associations with their workforce-related efforts.

AAMC's new Center for Workforce Studies will be established in April 2004 when its new director, Edward Salsberg, will join the association. Mr. Salsberg founded the Center for Health Workforce Studies at SUNY-Albany in 1996. The center is a national leader in the area of health workforce issues, and is one of six organizations to receive a federal cooperative agreement to support its study of the supply and demand of health care professionals.

Mr. Salsberg is also the chair of the U.S. delegation to the 2003 and 2004 International Medical Workforce Collaborative. He has been on the steering committee of the National Academy for State Health Policy since 1995 and was a member of the American Hospital Association's Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems. In addition, Mr. Salsberg is a member of the faculty at the School of Public Health in Albany. From 1984 until 1996, he was a Bureau Director at the New York State Department of Health. Mr. Salsberg received his Masters in Public Administration from the Wagner School at New York University.

"An appropriate number of doctors is essential to providing high quality health care," said AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D. "With the help of Ed Salsberg, a national workforce expert, AAMC can better address the physician workforce issues facing our country and assist the nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals in coping with any future shortages."

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The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 130 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and nearly 90 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 125,000 faculty members, 70,000 medical students, and 104,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org/newsroom.

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