Medical educators predict shortage of anatomy professors
Medical schools across the country are facing a shortage of qualified faculty to teach gross anatomy, according to an article in April issue of Academic Medicine, but the authors say this crisis is reversible. In a 2002 survey conducted by two national anatomy education associations, more than 80 percent of medical school department chairs responsible for teaching anatomy acknowledged having difficulty recruiting faculty to teach gross anatomy. The authors believe there are enough qualified persons in the pipeline to reverse this shortage as long as the academic community provides incentives to encourage new faculty members to teach gross anatomy when they make the transition from postdoctoral fellows to junior faculty members.

The article, "Importance of Anatomy in Health Professions Education and the Shortage of Qualified Educators," was written by Robert McCuskey, Ph.D., president of the American Association of Anatomists; Stephen Carmichael, Ph.D., past-president of the Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Neurobiology Chairpersons; and Darrell Kirch, M.D., dean of the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and chief executive officer of the Hershey Medical Center. For more information, please visit http://www.academicmedicine.org.

Medicare trust fund will be solvent until 2020
Last week, the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds released their annual report on the current status and projected condition of the funds over the next 75 years. According to the report, the Medicare Part A trust fund will be financially insolvent in 2020, one year later than previously projected. Medicare Parts B and D will be "adequately financed," but the government will have to "rapidly" increase the premiums and general revenue transfers from the U.S. Treasury that fund Parts B and D in order to "match expected expenditure growth under current law." The report states, "Medicare's financial difficulties come sooner -- and are much more severe -- than those confronting Social Security" due to increases in underlying health-care costs per enrollee. The fund fails the trustees' short-range 10-year financial adequacy test as well as the long-range test of 75 years by a wide margin. For more information, please visit http://www.cms.hhs.gov/publications/trusteesreport/tr2005.pdf.

CDC issues final rule on select agents
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published a final rule for universities and other organizations that work with select agents, or toxins or microbes associated with potential bioterrorism concerns. These regulations carry forth many of the provisions of earlier interim rules issued on this subject in 2003. The final version includes additional provisions requiring annual institutional review of biosafety and security plans. This final rule was released by the CDC on March 18 on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services. At the same time, a companion rule for agricultural select agents was released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For more information, please visit http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/pdf/05-5216.pdf.

National poll shows strong support for stem-cell research
A majority of Americans support embryonic stem-cell and therapeutic cloning research, according to a national poll commissioned by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research. The survey found that the more respondents learned about the research, the more they supported its use to help treat some of life's most debilitating diseases and conditions.

Of the respondents polled, 59 percent initially favored embryonic stem-cell research; 33 percent opposed it. After respondents were read a brief description of the research, the percentage of those in favor of it increased to 68 percent and only 28 percent continued to oppose it. Similarly, a question regarding the use of cloning to develop stem cells found that 60 percent of respondents favored the research; 35 percent opposed it. After a detailed description of therapeutic cloning research was read to them, the respondents in favor of it increased to 72 percent; 23 percent continued to oppose it. The AAMC is a member of CAMR. For more information, please visit http://www.camradvocacy.org/fastaction/news.asp?id=1326.