The ongoing shortage of post-graduate residency program slots means thousands of medical school graduates, through no fault of their own, fail to match with a position. These “unmatched grads” are left every year with extremely limited options while they wait to apply again the following year.
Missouri has been a leader in allowing these skilled professionals the ability to obtain an “Assistant Physician” (AP) license. This license allows them to continue training and to serve in a patient care role under the supervision of, and in collaboration with, a fully licensed Missouri physician.
Unlike PAs and NPs, APs have graduated from medical school and have passed at least the first two steps of the rigorous U.S. Medical Licensing Exam. These unmatched grads also have significantly more clinical training than non-physician clinicians are required to have before being eligible for a license in Missouri.
Unfortunately, there are two bills moving through the Missouri Legislature, HB 2906 and SB 938, that would essentially gut the AP license, by making the following changes:
1) AP licenses would only be issued to any graduate of a “North American medical school.” This restriction would discriminate against and disqualify a large number of quality applicants seeking an AP license.
2) The bills would also limit the number of years a graduate can hold this license. There is no end in sight to the extreme shortage of residency program slots thanks to a dependence on federal dollars and monopoly control by entities like the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Thus limiting these unmatched grads to serving in an AP role for only a certain number of years would be bad policy and contrary to the best interests of Missouri. No other type of license granted by the State of Missouri has an arbitrary cap on years of service. Professionals with years of valuable experience should not fear losing their license in this illogical manner.
3) Areas of the state eligible to be served by APs would be further limited, which means reducing patient access to care from medical school graduates.
Please ask key Missouri legislators to oppose HB 2906 and SB 938.
The following link will help you get a message on the way with a few short clicks: https://p2a.co/qnUnx4Z
Thank you for speaking out! Your voice makes a difference. There was an attempt to pass harmful changes similar to these through last year and thanks to your help the attempts failed. We can stop them again if everyone takes a few moments to contact legislators.
