As physicians, we always stive to improve the quality of care that we provide to our patients. But as we have gotten better at our jobs, more and more patients are living longer, and our patient population is growing faster than our workforce. There is an impending workforce shortage in the field of Pediatric Nephrology. A white paper was recently released describing efforts to improve the workforce shortage from a workforce summit held by American Society of Pediatric Nephrology. Four work groups resulted from this summit: (1) Trainee Education and Exposure; (2) Reimbursement and Policy Issues; (3) Fellowship Training Duration; and (4) Retention, Burnout, and Professional Well-Being. Unfortunately, these issues are not specific to Pediatric Nephrology and translate across many other pediatric specialties.
Some of the issues that will be covered in this collection are sensitive topics that are typically considered “difficult”. Hiding, ignoring, or distracting ourselves from the problems makes it almost impossible to solve them. We not only need to address the looming workforce shortage, but we also need to address the wellbeing and inequities with our current workforce, and some of the issues plaquing both are the same. Addressing and mitigating these key factors is essential for a healthy current and future workforce.
The scope of these manuscripts will be to address these issues head on and in-depth. It is our goal that the authors will not only bring awareness to the issues, but also provide potential solutions.
As physicians, we always stive to improve the quality of care that we provide to our patients. But as we have gotten better at our jobs, more and more patients are living longer, and our patient population is growing faster than our workforce. There is an impending workforce shortage in the field of Pediatric Nephrology. A white paper was recently released describing efforts to improve the workforce shortage from a workforce summit held by American Society of Pediatric Nephrology. Four work groups resulted from this summit: (1) Trainee Education and Exposure; (2) Reimbursement and Policy Issues; (3) Fellowship Training Duration; and (4) Retention, Burnout, and Professional Well-Being. Unfortunately, these issues are not specific to Pediatric Nephrology and translate across many other pediatric specialties.
Some of the issues that will be covered in this collection are sensitive topics that are typically considered “difficult”. Hiding, ignoring, or distracting ourselves from the problems makes it almost impossible to solve them. We not only need to address the looming workforce shortage, but we also need to address the wellbeing and inequities with our current workforce, and some of the issues plaquing both are the same. Addressing and mitigating these key factors is essential for a healthy current and future workforce.
The scope of these manuscripts will be to address these issues head on and in-depth. It is our goal that the authors will not only bring awareness to the issues, but also provide potential solutions.
