Every year there are many residents looking for work in psychiatry in
underserved areas all over the United States. These positions offer loan
forgiveness to U.S. medical graduates and J-1 visa waiver opportunities to
international medical graduates. However, the number of positions in
underserved areas far exceeds the number of residents seeking to fill
them.
If this pattern continues, there will be more underserved areas without
psychiatrists and in turn more people with mental illness not able to get
care. As psychiatrists and APA members, we need to put addressing this issue
at the top of our to-do list.
Among the remedies we might consider are to increase the number of
psychiatry residents in programs in or near underserved areas, to encourage
residents to take electives in such areas, to provide more incentives for
working in underserved areas, and to simplify the J-1 visa waiver application
process for international medical graduates.
We need to address this problem now while it is still manageable rather
than just "wait and see."