The healthcare industry is facing a growing shortage of infectious disease specialists, which "could not be happening at a worse time" amid the rise in drug-resistant infections, Matt McCarthy, MD, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.
Dr. McCarthy is an infectious disease specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He noted the number of resident programs that fill every available infectious disease training position fell by 40 percent between 2009 and 2017.
At the same time, "antibiotic-resistant microbes, known as superbugs, are pinballing around the world, killing hundreds of thousands of people every year," Dr. McCarthy wrote.
He attributed the shortage of infectious disease specialists to compensation issues. Infectious disease specialists oversee some of the most complex patient cases in healthcare but are paid among the lowest due to Medicare's reimbursement process, according to Dr. McCarthy.
"The Infectious Diseases Society of America and other professional organizations have devised aggressive recruitment and advocacy strategies, but there is far more work to be done," he concluded. "It begins with the recognition that infectious disease doctors are overworked and underpaid. Our insurance system needs a better way to measure the value of diagnoses and treatments so that we can fairly reimburse doctors in cognitive specialties."