“That I don’t know. I just don’t know. I really just don’t know.”
By 
The AMA recently published an article about how the Republican drive to ban some health care procedures is impacting residency program selection.
In the coming residency-application cycle, graduating medical students and other applicants to a number of physician residency specialties—most notably obstetrics and gynecology—are facing a tricky question: How should abortion restrictions or outright bans affect which residency programs they decide to pursue?
Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) may shed light on how some applicants answered that question during the 2022–2023 application cycle. Fourteen states now ban abortion from conception and 11 ban it between six and 22 weeks after the last menstrual period.
According to the AAMC data, the number of unique senior applicants from U.S. MD-granting medical schools to residency programs in states with abortion bans fell by 3%. At this article’s deadline, data was not yet available for applicants from DO-granting institutions.
The impact was felt most dramatically in obstetrics and gynecology, in which programs saw a 5.2% drop in applicant volume from U.S. MD- granting institutions overall, compared with a 1.8% fall in the volume of such applicants across all specialties.
In states in which abortion has been totally banned, the number of applicants to ob-gyn residency programs from U.S. MD-granting schools fell by more than 10% when compared with the prior year. For states with gestational limits on abortion, applicant volume dropped 6.4%.
Across all ob-gyn applicant types, including applicants from DO-granting institutions and international medical graduates, the dips were slightly less pronounced, with a prior-year decrease of 4.9% overall, a decrease of 8.1% in states in which abortion was illegal and a 5.8% decrease in states with gestational limits on abortions.
It isn’t surprising that medical students might avoid applying for an ob/gyn residency program in a state that outlaws essential parts of their training.
But the article also reminded me of the timeless riddle.
Why else might a freshly-minted physician avoid a state that has banned abortion? What other factors might make a state where certain forms of medical care are illegal unattractive to a physician? Is there anything else about a state that bans abortion that could repel a physician???
“I’m afraid I really just don’t know. I’m afraid even I really just don’t know. I have to tell you I’m afraid even I really just don’t know. I’m afraid I have to tell you (glug, glug).”
People who post off-topic comments keep everyone up all night,
scrabbling down by the wainscotting.
