U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Bob Casey, R-Pa., have introduced the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Support Reauthorization Act to ensure that children’s hospitals have the support they need to provide adequate medical education for training of pediatricians and other residents. In Georgia, this would include Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
 
Specifically, this bipartisan legislation would reauthorize funding to the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program.
 
“The health of children in Georgia and across the country is of utmost importance, and this continued investment through the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education program will help ensure our pediatric workforce and healthcare facilities are receiving the support necessary to deliver quality care,” said Isakson.
 
“Children have very different medical needs from adults and it is essential that we have a specialized workforce to care for them,” said Casey. “Each year through this program, over 5,000 residents are trained to care for our youngest patients.”
 
The bipartisan legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, John Cornyn, R-Texas, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., David Perdue, R-Ga., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Jack Reed, D-R.I., Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
 
For more than a decade, the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education program has provided children’s teaching hospitals with federal support for job training for physicians who care for children. The program was first enacted by Congress in 1999 with bipartisan support and has been reauthorized three times since then, each time with broad bipartisan support. The program provides funding to more than 50 freestanding children’s hospitals around the country to support the training of pediatricians and other residents.
 
Before the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education program was created, the number of residents who trained in freestanding children’s hospitals declined by more than 13 percent. The Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education program has reversed that trend, and today these hospitals train approximately half of all pediatricians.