Provide $400 million in funding for children’s hospital graduate medical education programs in the FY 2020 budget, 28 groups have asked congressional leaders in a recent letter.

The letter, sent to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies and the same subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, notes that

Sustaining pediatric training programs at children’s hospitals to meet the need of children, now and in the future, requires bolstering our national commitment.  Support for training pediatric providers through CHGME (children’s hospitals graduate medical education) lags behind the per-trainee levels provided through other federal programs.  We cannot risk falling behind in advancing children’s health.  Ongoing workforce shortages need to addressed, most acutely among pediatric specialties such as developmental pediatrics, child and adolescent psychiatry, and pediatric genetics and genomics, and CHGME is mission to meeting this need.

Read the letter and see a list of the organizations that sent it here.