A new Texas law went into effect Sept. 1, aiming to address a projected shortage of more than 10,000 physicians in the state over the next several years, particularly in rural areas, KERA News reported Aug. 27.
Under previous law, foreign physicians had to spend at least three years in medical residency before getting licensed in Texas, regardless of how much experience they had. Now, under House Bill 2038, also called the Doctor Act, foreign physicians are offered an alternative licensing pathway to newly graduated physicians.
The law focuses on rural communities and requires that physicians who utilize this licensing pathway spend one year with a provisional license working in a rural community or an area designated by HHS as having a shortage of healthcare professionals.
Tanner Crutcher, a judge in rural Delta County, told KERA that the law might not go far enough to increase medical care in the state. While he welcomed the new law, he added that healthcare issues for rural residents extend beyond the physician shortage.
“I think one of the bigger issues that we see in rural counties is transportation,” he said. “Some of them don’t have reliable means of transportation to get to those specialty doctors that they may have to travel outside of the county or into a more urban area to receive that type of treatment.”
Ogan Gurel, MD, a physician at the University of Texas at Arlington, told the publication in July that there is also a need for more residency positions in Texas. Currently, there are more medical school graduates in the state than there are residency slots, he said, so many physicians end up leaving the state to practice.
The law also excludes physicians who are not already U.S. citizens or work visa holders from countries identified in the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community released by the Director of National Intelligence. These countries include Russia, China, Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria and others.
