This is nothing short of a crisis that should have been avoided. I was in school as a first year student about 6-7 years ago and I was aware of the looming shortage even then. I voiced to my APMSA student representative to please make this the #1 priority issue at their meetings. Then I heard our dean say, while speaking to our class, that he was upset that Western got CPME approval for 50 slots and our school only got approval for 35 (don't recall exact numbers). My dean's goal was more students, even as the shortage loomed. Sounded like that was Western's goal as well. To say our profession is doing great and making progress is really good, but to not have this shortage as front page news on every major publication for the past 6 years is a tragedy. There is a writeup in the most recent JAPMA touting the great accomplishments of the past year for our profession, but we really should be facing the shortage head on, talking more about it, fixing it, and putting it as the top or near top priority. I know it isn't politically correct or fun to talk about...
I've got a program so this doesn't affect me personally, but it is irresponsible to allow the schools to keep taking so many students without residencies for them.
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