Nursing Graduate Medical Education: Misdirected Funding

Abstract

The author traces the history of Graduate Medical Education (GME) since its inception as part of the 1965 Medicare law. In structuring the GME payment, congress directed nursing support to provider-operated diploma schools where 80% of the nation’s nursing students were enrolled. Today, community college, senior college, and university programs enroll 82% of the nation’s nursing students. Because college- and university-based nursing education were only beginning to emerge in 1965, congress did not consider funding to support clinical training in graduate nursing programs. Currently, the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee is mandated to studying restructuring the 35-year-old GME payment, and must specifically address nursing education. Nursing organizations, particularly, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), continue to lobby congress to redirect GME funding to support graduate nursing education. The author, on the staff of AACN, discusses current strategies and concerns dealing with the GME issue.

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References

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