Veterans-Specific Education for Tomorrow's Health Professionals Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1271) to establish in the Department of Veterans Affairs a pilot program instituting a clinical observation program for pre-med students preparing to attend medical school.

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1271, the Vet HP Act. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported last month that it has 48,985 vacancies. That means about 10 percent of the positions at VA are unfilled.

Sadly, a majority of these vacancies are Veterans Health Administration vacancies. VA does not have enough doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other medical providers and support staff to make sure veterans have timely access to the high quality healthcare delivered by VA. With shortages in areas like mental health and primary care, it can become increasingly difficult to maintain a facility's efficiency and quality. That is why it is so important that VA does everything it can to fill every last vacancy.

The committee is not blind to the challenge of meeting this laudable goal. Hospital systems throughout the country also face health provider shortages. Rural areas and some urban areas are often the most in need of providers. However, that should not be an excuse for inaction, and relying solely on community providers who also face shortages and lack the expertise and cultural competency to provide for veterans' specific healthcare needs is an incomplete, problematic, and high-cost solution.

The VA must work to recruit and retain talented and mission-driven clinicians and employees who are guided by one goal: to provide the best possible care to veterans when they need it.

The bill offered by Congresswoman Kaptur from Ohio is a creative and necessary step towards ensuring VA is able to fill each vacant position. The Vet HP Act seeks to expose undergraduate students considering careers in medicine to experience the VA healthcare environment directly. By allowing undergraduates to observe the work of staff at VA medical centers firsthand, the department can begin recruiting early--by sowing interest in students about the VA's mission and the healthcare, research, academic, and professional opportunities available to clinicians at VA medical centers. As an educator of 70 percent of the Nation's healthcare providers, VA can create an early familiarity with VA among students thinking about or preparing for careers in medicine.

Our Nation's future healthcare providers may be more likely to choose residencies at academic affiliates of VA medical centers and careers at VA if they are more familiar with VA's mission and are able to observe the improvements VA clinicians are able to make in the lives of those who have served our Nation.

Moreover, as the veteran population becomes increasingly more diverse, VA should strive to recruit students from backgrounds as diverse as the military and veteran population so that VA staff and clinicians reflect that growing diversity and are better equipped and able to understand the needs of the veterans they serve.

In an effort to create a pipeline of diverse, mission-focused students, this bill focuses specifically on students who graduated from high schools in health professional shortage areas, students who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other institutions of higher education that serve minorities, and first-generation college students.

Giving students this exposure to VA's mission will help address the VA's 48,985 vacancies so that it can continue to provide the healthcare veterans need.

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Mr. TAKANO. Kaptur), who is my good friend and the author of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague, the ranking member, about our effort to insert 1,500 medical residencies into the Choice bill. That was one of the great accomplishments of that particular Congress.

I would point out that we still face shortages nationally of physicians and specialists, and we face a great challenge with our medical workforce and our healthcare workforce, and that impacts the VA's ability to fill these positions.

I particularly want to highlight the gentlewoman from Ohio's comments about young people who do not have the connections to medical professionals, or they are not necessarily connected to the professional segments of our society where they might be exposed to what it means to be a medical professional and what it means to serve the VA's mission. I think that her insights and her experience and what she brings to this bill is a tremendous understanding of the need for those of our young people who come from lower incomes or who come from segments of society that could be left behind. We have Americans of great ability whom we need to recruit and expose to the opportunities that await them in organizations like the VA.

Let me just say that filling these vacancies is going to be a high priority of the committee and to poke, prod, cajole, and urge the VA to do what it needs to do to reform itself in order to make sure that these positions are filled. Let me emphasize that these positions are funded, that these are funded positions. They are empty, and that, to me, also indicates that we have a workforce training challenge before us.

H.R. 1271, offered by my colleague, Ms. Kaptur, is one of the necessary steps that we need to take in order to fill those vacancies.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in passing H.R. 1271, the Vet HP Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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