Touro Osteopathic Medical Students Honored for Their Research Project on Nevada’s Physician Shortage

Jul 21, 2020

Fourth-year medical students Rhiannon Ryan and Scott Goodsell recently had their research project, titled “The Future of the Physician Shortage in Nevada,” published in the American College of Legal Medicine (ACLM).

Ryan said she and Goodsell had a personal connection to the topic as both of them grew up in different parts of the country with a physician shortage; she in rural Idaho and he in Southern Nevada.

“We wanted to research how this issue was being addressed in Nevada, which has one of the lowest physician per capita rates in the United States,” she said. “The most important place to start was in looking at the residency programs in Nevada. The most efficient way for a state to increase their physician population is to have residency programs that have high retention rates; meaning many of the residents in those programs will stay and practice in the state after completing their training.”

Ryan said she is hopeful that the medical community, especially residency programs, will learn to invest in residents who are likely to stay in the area; especially for programs in medically underserved areas.

“We want residency programs to understand the important role they play in supplying physicians to their surrounding communities and to select residents with that in mind,” she said.

After it published in the ACLM, the American Journal of Internal Medicine (AJIM) discovered their research project. The AJIM said the students’ research left a ‘deep impression’ on the organization and invited Ryan and Goodsell to join its editorial board and review new research submissions.

“It was a bit of a surprise to be contacted by another journal and asked not only to submit publications to them but also join their editorial board, but we are definitely honored by the opportunity,” Ryan said. “It just goes to show that even a seemingly small project like this one can have a significant impact across the medical community; and we’re just happy to have been able to make that contribution.”