The United States is only one of a handful of countries in the world that doesn’t have a general practitioner pathway. We require every medical graduate to attend a medical residency training program before licensure. No other healthcare professional graduate program in the United States has this requirement, and this is impacting access to healthcare for millions of uninsured Americans. 

Today is match day. A day where medical students learn where they will be training for the next 3-5 years. Every match cycle there are thousands of qualified medical graduates that go unmatched, and year after year this number continues to rise.

So now we are experiencing the impact and the effects of not having a general practitioner pathway in real time, and why it’s extremely important that we reform this licensure process now, or else our healthcare system will not be able to sustain the impact of the COVID-19 virus.

On the federal level, the VA is asking for all healthcare professional retirees return to practice. New York is asking for healthcare professional students to register for a state wide call list. However, no one is mentioning utilizing the thousands of unmatched medical graduates (physicians) that are sitting idle on the sidelines, watching and listening to the front-line healthcare professionals plead hospital and government officials for support.

We must act now!