Push To End HIV Epidemic in Us Complicated by ‘Brain Drain’

Model of a brain - Unsplash, Robina Weermeijer
Healio Pediatrics

Fewer medical trainees are entering the field of HIV research and medicine, leaving a shortage in the workforce that is likely to get worse, experts including Dr. Elizabeth Connick, professor of medicine and immunobiology and chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. But the trend is part of a wider problem: almost four of every 10 infectious disease fellowship programs were not filled on match day last year. Dr. Connick says this problem is exacerbated by the debt medical students have and the fears they hold regarding paying off their loans as infectious disease physicians.