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GE Supports Medical and Healthcare Students

The GE Foundation is helping to increase access to healthcare by cultivating a pipeline of Primary Care physicians and healthcare providers through a grant to National Medical Fellowships. Community health pioneer Dr. Jack Geiger speaks about the shortage of providers in underserved communities and offers how the GE grant to National Medical Fellowships will address the need.

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[[GE™ GE Foundation] We're in trouble in this country and we're going to be in more trouble pretty soon]

[because we have such a looming shortage of primary care physicians.]

[[H. Jack Geiger, M.D. Chair, PCLP National Advisory Committee National Medical Fellowships]]

[We're kind of over-supplied with specialists and subspecialists]

[and undersupplied with family doctors and internists and pediatricians]

[and all of the basic elements of primary care.]

[[Bob Corcoran President & Chairman, GE Foundation] It's very clear. When you can increase access to primary care,]

[for young children and for families who are struggling to make ends meet,]

[and they go early for care for a $50 doctor appointment versus a $500 emergency room visit, that's a big deal. ]

[And when you go to underserved communities, the resources are obviously more scarce as opposed to other communities.]

[[Cristian Rico, M.D. Regional Medical Director of Los Angeles County, AltaMed Health Care Services]]

[There aren't enough physicians in these areas as well as actual healthcare facilities to serve the population.]

[[Brenda Oiyemhonlan, M.D. GE/National Medical Fellowships International Medical Scholars]]

[The best estimates are that by six years from now we're going to be short roughly 40,000 primary care doctors.]

[My clinic, the El Monte Facility, for every 10,000 people in the population, there was 1 physician.]

[The objectives of this grant are quite simple. It's to provide the opportunity for the medical students]

[to spend quality time in low resource communities delivering primary care. ]

[When I was a medical student, there were a lot of people who wanted to do this.]

[But because of the cost and the differences in the actual salaries of primary care doctors versus specialty, ]

[they've chose to go other ways because of their needs.]

[But this is an opportunity for those folks who want to serve the underserved to be influenced to do so.]

[[James Mangia, M.D., M.P.H. CEO, St. John's Well Child & Family Center]]

[Many physicians don't realize that when you go into private practice and you have a stable set of patients, ]

[there's not as much gratification as when you work in a poor community where you have such a huge impact.]

[[Sharayne Mark, M.D. GE/National Medical Fellowships International Medical Scholars]]

[You're given two career paths. Do you want to be in academia or are you going to go out into the private sector?]

[We do not learn about the community healthcare systems.]

[And by providing this program, it gives students the opportunity to experience firsthand ]

[how healthcare is administered to people within the community.]

[It's definitely influenced me to stay in the community and to continue my career in the community.]

[What does GE Foundation grant the National Medical Fellowships?]

[It is, in effect, an investment in the future.]

[It is a chance to provide young health professional students to learn to work in these settings,]

[to learn what it takes to run and manage these settings,]

[to provide high-quality care at modest cost for the people who are in the greatest need.]

[And that's something that the country needs now and will continue to need for decades to come.]

[♫music♫ [GE™ GE Foundation]]

[[NATIONAL MEDICAL FELLOWSHIPS changing the face of medicine]]