Boston - American Association for Thoracic Surgery

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THORACIC SURGERYMETHODS: Retrospective examination of the pertinent literature and with amodification Richard Cooper’s economic trend analysis, a population algorithmwith a ratio of physicians to population of 1.42 /100,000. Each thoracic surgeon willpractice thirty years from Board Certification to retirement. The Balanced BudgetAct will not be revised; therefore we will certify 100 graduates from our programsper year. The assumed salaries will be $50,000 with benefits of 30%, and $ 15,000of additional DME costs.RESULTS: The population in 2030 will be 364,000,000 with 5,169 CT surgeonsneeded at that time. Unfortunately, there will be only about 3,200 of them in practicewith a shortage of almost 2,000. To maintain our current status per 100,000population from 2011 to 2030, we will have to train 4,000 residents The total manyears would be almost 28,000. The cost for this greater than $2,000,000,000. Theannual cost for this training prorated over 20 years would be greater than$110,000,000.MONDAYMorningCONCLUSION: 1) We must train almost 4,000 surgeons in our specialty to meetthe needs of the population by 2030, 2) That will cost almost $2,250,000,000, and3) To do this, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 must be revised to permit moreresidents to be trained in the United States.71