mafabet Why Doctors Aren’t Going Into Pediatrics

I haven’t actively practiced pediatrics for a few years, but one of my favorite things to do is to be an on-call physician for friends’ and colleagues’ kids. While I can address most of their issues over the phonemafabet, some need a recommendation for a pediatrician for in-person care. In the last few years, though, making such connections has been frustrating. Many pediatricians that I recommend can’t take on new patients.

There aren’t enough pediatricians right now, and because of that, some kids are unable to get the care they need. In Nevada, children can wait weeks or months for an appointment. In New Jersey, children who need a developmental pediatrician wait a minimum of three months. In Philadelphia, kids can wait three to six months for a pulmonologist and four months to see an allergist, and many can’t see a developmental pediatrician at all.

Things could get even worse: Fewer graduates from U.S. medical schools than we’ve seen in decades want to be pediatricians.

The results of this year’s medical residency match — a process where medical students are paired with residency programs in U.S. hospitals — were startling. More than 50,000 medical school graduates sought residency training in the 2024 match, an increase of almost 5 percent from the previous year. But the number of students applying to pediatric programs dropped more than 6 percent.

This morning, the latest New York Times/Siena College polls of Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina find Donald J. Trump leading Kamala Harris in all three states, with a lead of three points in North Carolina, four points in Georgia and five points in Arizona.

By the usual measures, this is a small post-debate bounce. In fact, it is the smallest bounce for the perceived consensus winner of the first presidential debate so far this century. George W. Bush, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and, yes, Donald J. Trump earlier this year, all peaked with gains of at least two points after their debates.

Approximately 30 percent of pediatric training programs failed to fill their available residency slots, leaving 252 positions vacant — a notable increase from just 88 vacant spots last year. This isn’t a minor hiccup; it’s a warning for the future of pediatric care in the United States.

Nurse practitioners and physician assistants could help fill the gap in pediatric primary care. But they cannot easily do so for subspecialty care, such as pediatric gastroenterologists, cardiologists and pulmonologists. “What’s been uniformly concerning for 20 years has been the waning interest in pediatrics subspecialties as the need has grown,” Dr. Atul Grover, the executive director of the Association of American Medical College’s Research and Action Institute, told me. Because we’ve gotten better at treating many childhood illnesses, the number of children with complex diseases that require ongoing care into adulthood will probably increase.

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