Research by Associate Professor Hiroki Ide of the Graduate School of Health Data Science at Juntendo University and Professor Soichi Koike of the Center for Regional Medicine at Jichi Medical University has revealed that the regional disparity in the distribution of resident physicians is difficult to solve simply by increasing or decreasing the quotas for clinical training programs in each prefecture.
The research group, with the cooperation of the Medical Clinical Training Matching Council, used matching data from 2022 to investigate whether it would be possible to correct disparities by reducing the quotas in the top third of prefectures with the most doctors and increasing the quotas in the bottom third of prefectures with the fewest doctors by 5 to 20.
According to the study, even when the number of positions in prefectures with a shortage of doctors was increased, the number of residents who successfully matched with doctors decreased, and the rate of fulfilling positions in each prefecture did not change significantly. The proportion of residents who did not find a match in their original prefecture but found one in another prefecture was low, resulting in an increase in the number of "unmatched" residents. It was found that even if the positions were moved to rural areas, residents who wanted to go to rural areas did not move.
The research group believes that "rather than expanding the number of available places, it is more realistic and important to promote measures that have already proven effective in other countries, such as utilizing regional quotas for medical schools, improving training opportunities in areas with a shortage of doctors, and providing non-monetary incentives."
Paper information: [BMC Medical Education] Effects of Residency Matching Policies on Regional Distribution of Residents: A Simulation Study Using a Stable Matching Algorithm
