Nearly a thousand fewer doctors applied to come to Utah this year. The state’s abortion rules may be to blame.
The number of new medical school graduates applying to Utah residency programs dropped by nearly a thousand this year, continuing a trend of health care professionals choosing to work elsewhere — a trend that will likely have impacts on, which documented a wide range of shifts — from a decrease of 19.3% to an increase of 30.3%. The applicants considering the Beehive State went down by 13.1%, and the average state saw a 10.1% decline.
If the courts determine that law is allowed under the Utah Constitution, abortion would be barred except in cases when the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus has a fatal abnormality. Survivors of rape or incest would only be allowed to access abortion up to 15 weeks. Researchers added, “Because these policy decisions appear to affect where physicians plan to practice, state governments and health care leaders need to consider the potential impact of those decisions on the physician workforce.”
He continued, “So this is a major connector and driver for our ability to recruit and retain workforce for the future, and we’ve already seen it in applications locally and nationally for medical training, especially for OB-GYNs.” “I really do fear for Utah’s ability to attract doctors, when, in this competitive world of medicine, they can go where legislative bodies respect their judgment and the judgment of their patients,” Lesser said, adding, “There will be delay in getting care, because if you have limited numbers of providers, and the same number of patients, which we know from our Utah population going up, that will be, I think, a real catastrophe.