NEW ORLEANS – More than one-third of pediatric residency programs do not have a pediatric rheumatologist on faculty, a situation that has changed little since 2004, according to a poster presented at the Pediatric Rheumatology Symposium 2023 conference.

“This shortage has significant downstream effects,” according to author Miriah Gillispie-Taylor, MD, an assistant professor of pediatric rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Without adequate education, it’s unreasonable to expect that a pediatrician will recognize the great diversity of presentations among rheumatic diseases, for example. “Without recognition, patients are not referred in a timely manner, and earlier identification and treatment of rheumatic diseases leads to improved outcomes,” Dr. Gillispie-Taylor said.

Currently, eight U.S. states do not have a board-certified pediatric rheumatologist, including Alaska. Dr. Gillispie-Taylor cited a 2006 study that found that one-third of medical schools (33%) and 40% of U.S. pediatric residency programs did not have an on-site pediatric rheumatologist in 2004.

As the long-standing workforce shortage in pediatric rheumatology continues, Dr. Gillispie-Taylor and her colleagues investigated whether increasing awareness of this problem has influenced the number of United States and Puerto Rico residency training programs with pediatric rheumatology faculty from 2004 to present.

The researchers identified 212 pediatric residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for 2022-2023 and reviewed their program website to see which ones had affiliated pediatric rheumatology faculty. After determining the faculty from the website for 85% of the programs, the researchers emailed the other programs to find out whether a pediatric rheumatologist was on faculty, filling out another 6% of the programs. Most of the remaining uncategorized programs (7%) were categorized at a meeting of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance medical education workgroup. Only 2% of programs could not be ultimately categorized.

The region with the greatest proportion of pediatric residency programs that had a pediatric rheumatologist was the Southeast, where 95% (36 of 38 programs) of programs had one on faculty. The Southwest, comprising Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, had the lowest proportion: 43% (9 of 21 programs). For the other regions, 69% of the West/Pacific Northwest (18 of 26), 62% of the Midwest (28 of 45), and 61% of the Northeast (39 of 64) programs had a pediatric rheumatologist on faculty. Three of Puerto Rico’s four programs had one as well.

Overall, 63% of programs had a pediatric rheumatologist on faculty, and 36% did not; the state of three programs was unknown.

The large proportion of programs without a pediatric rheumatologist “limits exposure to rheumatologic conditions and learning opportunities during residency and contribute to declining fellow match rates,” the authors concluded. They noted that only 62.8% of pediatric rheumatology fellowship positions were filled in 2022, down slightly from the 69.2% filled in 2021, according to report data from the National Matching Resident Program.

The researchers acknowledged that their results could be skewed if website information was outdated for any programs, and it’s difficult to determine which programs might lack resources on the basis of only publicly available information. Though programs without pediatric rheumatologists might benefit from visiting professorships, it can be difficult to identify which ones, they added.

The authors recommend two next steps: one, establishing areas of essential knowledge in pediatric rheumatology to enable the creation of learning objectives so programs can focus their educational efforts; and two, continuing efforts to understand residents’ motivation to pursue fellowships in pediatric rheumatology for the purpose of improving recruitment.

Two medical students at Dr. Gillispie-Taylor’s institution spoke with this news organization about their thoughts on the findings and how they were approaching their own career goals in medicine in light of these findings.

Kyla Fergason, a second-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine, said that she thinks she wants to pursue pediatrics or meds-peds. Though she’s not sure whether she specifically wants to pursue pediatric rheumatology, she is very interested in the area and said that she has learned much from the Pediatric Rheumatology Symposium conference. She found the dearth of pediatric rheumatology faculty at residency programs worrisome, particularly in states like Alaska and Hawaii because they aren’t contiguous with the rest of the United States. Only three pediatric rheumatologists are practicing in Hawaii.

“It’s really concerning that sometimes there is not any rheumatologist there to see the patient,” Ms. Fergason told this news organization. “These are diseases that affect people chronically throughout their entire lives, so it’s definitely concerning to think that, at a time when they could be helped and there could be interventions made, none are made because there’s just no one available.”

Kristiana Nasto, a third-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine, is similarly interested in pediatrics but leaning more toward meds-peds and has an interest in rheumatology as well. She was surprised at how many programs had no pediatric rheumatologist on faculty because Baylor has a robust program.

“I was not aware of the fact that other states or other parts of Texas do not have the luxury of the great rheumatologists that we have at Baylor College of Medicine,” Ms. Nasto said. “That can definitely impact care for many patients because some of these rheumatologic diseases are so unique and challenging to treat that they require specialized care, so it makes me a bit sad that this is the case.”

Dr. Gillispie-Taylor has received an educational grant from Pfizer. Ms. Fergason and Ms. Nasto had no disclosures. No external funding was noted for the study.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Little change in rheumatology faculty coverage in pediatric residency programs in nearly 20 years