Baylor's Kelsey-Seybold Clinic Family Medicine Residency to Close in 2011

It's official: Because of cuts in stipends and other funding issues, the Baylor College of Medicine/Kelsey-Seybold Clinic Family Medicine Residency Program in Houston will close effective July 1, 2011, according to program director Tricia Elliott, M.D.

"Despite recently receiving a 5-year accreditation cycle from the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) the residency program has not received the ongoing financial support necessary for the program to continue," Elliott said in a communication to AAFP leaders about the closing.

Elliott told AAFP News Now that major financial challenges started three years ago when stipends from one of the major teaching hospitals were cut by 50 percent, forcing the program to reduce its complement of residents from 18 to 12. Other financial problems followed that made the program "unsustainable," she said.

The decision to close was announced to residents and faculty on Sept. 30 and to the Baylor College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Committee on Oct. 20, said Elliott. Clinical care and the teaching program will be maintained through July 2011, she added.

Although Kelsey-Seybold's current second-year and third-year residents will be able to complete their training at the residency, the program's first-year residents will need new positions beginning in July 2010. Elliott said there has been a "wonderful outpouring" of help from program directors across the country to place those residents.

Linda Andrews, M.D., senior associate dean for graduate medical education at Baylor College of Medicine, said she regrets the closing. The college of medicine provided significant financial support for the program after the stipend cuts, but it could not provide additional funds when requested to do so by Kelsey-Seybold Clinic earlier this fall, she said.

"No one wants to lose primary care training positions," Andrews said. "Dr. Elliott has been a terrific program director and an asset to Baylor College of Medicine."

A second family medicine training program at the school, the Baylor College of Medicine-Harris County Hospital District Family Medicine Residency, will continue.

According to the AAFP, 30 family medicine residency programs closed from academic years 2003-04 to 2007-08.

At the recent 2009 AAFP Congress of Delegates, Elliott testified during a Reference Committee on Education hearing that current GME funding mechanisms, which fail to route funding directly to residency programs, are one of many factors threatening the survival of family medicine residency programs.

"I do hope out of this unfortunate and what I believe to be a seriously regrettable loss, I can help to call attention to the urgent need for restructuring of CMS/GME funding for family medicine," said Elliott.