USF senior medical student Alicia Billington spoke at a congressional briefing after the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) announced record-breaking medical school enrollment and the need to expand graduate medical education (GME) support.

The AAMC hosted the briefing Oct. 24, shortly after its release of this year’s medical school applicant and enrollment numbers.   Billington shared her perspective as a medical student about the increasing national demand for more physicians.  The solution, she said, must address the shortage of residency training slots for the growing pipeline of MD graduates.

“Quite frankly, I could go into engineering or a variety of other fields with my MD degree.  I’m here because I want to help patients, but if I don’t have a job in a residency program it will be impossible for me to do that,” said Billington, who is also a PhD candidate at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “We need to increase the number of residency positions so that our patients can have doctors.”

Alicia Billington, MD-PhD candidate at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, with Atul Grover, MD,PhD, AAMC chief public policy officer

Billington joined panelists Atul Grover, MD, PhD, chief public policy officer, AAMC, and Suanna Bruinooge, director of research policy, American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Her concerns that graduating students will not be able to match to residencies, despite the impending shortfall of physicians across various specialties, were also highlighted by Dr. Grover in his widely-read AAMC column Second Opinion.