Clinics gird for doctor shortage

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Clinics gird for doctor shortage
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, April 23, 2008

HEIDELBERG, Germany — A staff shortage at the Mannheim Health Clinic is a harbinger of shortages to come at other U.S. military health clinics, officials said, especially during the annual summer turnover.

“It’s always a concern every summer,” said Phil Tegtmeier, a spokesman for the European Regional Medical Command. “We have massive turnover. All will be short for summer.”

The reason, Tegtmeier said, was because doctors, whether military or civilian, tend to be parents who rotate out in the summer, moving in tempo with the school schedule. Their replacements do the same. Add in vacation time between assignments, and doctors don’t start work at their new assignments until the end of summer.

Recent news that the Mannheim Health Clinic was short- staffed and that the clinic was asking for patients’ patience in the long wait for appointments was prompted in part by the inevitable turnover, Tegtmeier said.

But it also pointed out two other issues affecting doctor staffing in U.S. facilities in Europe: the overall shortage of Army doctors due to deployments and difficulty of hiring civilian doctors, and the special difficulty of staffing on bases slated for closure.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54253