Hard Times' Take Toll on LSUMC

              35C
A Gannett newspaper
'Hard times' take toll on LSUMC
Dean: State's economic image affects .number of 1st-year residents
By AUSA STINGLEY
The Times
LSU Medical Center's group of
first-year residents — new doctors
just out of medical school — is the
smallest of the decade.
With the state's bleak economic
image and last spring's threats of
closing the medical center, LSUMC
officials have had a tough time re-cruiting
residents, said Dr. Darryl
Williams, dean of the medical
school.
"The bad publicity has hurt us,"
Williams said. "Before, about 60
percent of our (medical school) stu-dents
chose to stay in the state. Since
the hard times . . . the number has
fallen to 40 percent."
There are 47 first-year residents
— now called "house officers one"
— in LSU's program, which began
July 1. That figure includes eight at
E.A. Conway Memorial Hospital in
Monroe, an affiliate of LSUMC.
But last year there were 60 first-year
residents, including five at
E.A. Conway. In 1984, the numbers
for the decade peaked at 75, includ-ing
16 at E.A. Conway, according to
LSUMC's medical education office.
• The making of a doctor: 9A
"What we have to do is convince
them there is a future for them in
Louisiana," Williams said. "If we
can keep people in residency, we
can keep them in Louisiana."
Troubled departments, such as
anesthesiology, have hurt recruit-ing
in the past year.
The anesthesiology residency
program lost its accreditation this
year because it had not had a per-manent
chairman and enough fac-ulty.
The new chairman, Dr. Roger
Davis, is recruiting faculty now to
try to regain accreditation.
LSUMC also lost its two neu-rosurgeons
in June. If they can't be
quickly replaced, the long-term af-fect
on the teaching program, which
has never been accredited, would be
detrimental, hospital administrator
Gene Hammett said in June.
Williams said it is tough to lure
residents to an institution that not
only has had a gloomy image but lit-tle
money to buy state-of-the-art
equipment.
"Certainly for training we ought
to have a lithotripsy unit (for
crushing kidney stones). There are
two in town and both at private hos-pitals,"
he said.
Residents' pay is another factor.
This year's first-year residents
make about $21,327. That's up from
$16,866 in 1985.
Despite the drawbacks, Williams
said the medical center offers op-portunities
that new doctors may
not have elsewhere.
"We have a very rich cross-sec-tion
of patients, with all kinds of ill-ness,
from the simplest to the most
complicated," he said.
MONDAY
July 31,1989 The Times SHREVEPORT BOSSIER CITY ARK-LATEX