On a March 19 tour of UF's Center for Simulation Education & Safety Research (CSESaR), U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., talked with UF College of Medicine–Jacksonville residents, physicians and administrators about one of his favorite topics — his new bill to curb Florida's physician shortage by funding more slots in Florida's medical residency training programs.

The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, which Nelson co-sponsored with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., would expand medical residency training in Florida and 23 other states. If passed, Florida hospitals would gain 347 new residency positions – more than any other state.

"When you compare Florida to the other 49 states, we have the greatest deficiency," Nelson said. "If we are not getting the number of doctors to practice here for the size of our population, the quality of that medical care is going to go down."

Where people go for medical care will change, too. "If there's not enough primary care doctors, then patients will have to utilize a place like the E.R. to try to get their primary care done, and then wait times go up and patients are waiting for several hours," said Patrick Long, Jr., M.D., UF emergency medicine chief resident.

Key to getting doctors to practice in Florida is getting them to complete their residencies here because most residency graduates stay and work where they train, he explained.

"But at the University of Florida College of Medicine this year they'll graduate 125 medical students and 60 percent of them will have to train out of state because there are not enough slots here," Nelson said. "We paid for their education, and they're gone."

Passing the bill will be a challenge budgetwise, he said. "We're in a very tight budgetary environment in which the administration is trying to cut Medicare instead of increasing it," Nelson said. "It's going to be a fight."