Atul Grover, MD, PhD, executive director of the AAMC Research and Action Institute, was featured as a guest on a new episode of Meharry Medical College’s podcast, “Public Service Announcement with Dr. James E.K. Hildreth.” The podcast series, hosted by James E.K. Hildreth, MD, PhD, infectious disease expert and researcher and president of Meharry Medical College, focuses on relevant topics in health through conversations with influential and knowledgeable health and policy experts across the country.
In the episode entitled, “The Power of Policy,” Hildreth and Grover discuss the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and its implications on the physician workforce.
“I think there’s always been a great deal of pushback from the medical profession and health professionals in general to really try to protect their patients and the public. I think this is the first time that I can recall where that intrusion has been so direct, so deliberate, and potentially devastating to the health of our patients.”
Atul Grover, MD, PhD
The institute has published several pieces examining the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion on the physician workforce. A data snapshot noted that the training location preferences of U.S. medical students had changed dramatically in the wake of Dobbs, with a decrease in U.S. MD residency applicants in states that banned abortion, and a particularly substantial decline in OB-GYN applicants during the 2022-2023 application cycle. An updated analysis of this data will be published by the institute in 2024.
Grover additionally underscored the potential ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn race-conscious admissions and highlighted the vital benefits of diversity in the health care workforce, including improved patient-provider dynamics, health outcomes and reduced mortality, and innovation in health research.
He concluded the discussion with suggested key policy recommendations to support the health care workforce, such as increasing support for residency training, stabilizing clinical payments, and enforcing network adequacy and payment parity among private payers.