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North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live is a daily, five-minute newscast that shines a spotlight on the stories and perspectives of Minnesota’s diverse communities, including Black, Latine, Asian American, East African individuals, people living with disabilities, LGBTQIA2S+ residents, laborers, veterans, and those from Greater Minnesota.
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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
ANCHOR: In today's stories, Minnesota has its first licensed cannabis business. Then, Minnesota may be facing a physician's crisis. And, students with special needs in the Northland are getting updated classrooms.
I'm Chantel SinGs.
The Office of Cannabis Management, or OCM, issued Herb Quest, a microbusiness located in east central Minnesota, a license to carry out outdoor cultivation earlier this month. More than 600 other businesses could soon join its ranks. It's a major step toward establishing a legal recreational cannabis market here in the state. The OCM will also open license applications for testing facilities and cannabis-related events later this summer. The OCM encourages individuals interested in applying to visit its website for more information.
Next, the number of physicians leaving practice is outpacing the number of new physicians joining the workforce in the state. These numbers are expected to reach a critical point in the next 5 to 10 years if preventative measures are not implemented. Jose Ozoria has more.
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Doctor Edwin Bogonko: The bodies are not there. That leaves us in a very tough position, because we can't recruit fast enough to replace those that are leaving.
Jose Ozoria: Dr Edwin Bogonko is the president of the Minnesota Medical Association. He describes how the math has him and many in his field concerned about the future of the profession within the state.
Doctor Edwin Bogonko: We need almost 1200 additional primary care physicians by 2030 and if you balance that with what our current workforce is, that's almost a 28% to 30% increase. The rate at which we are adding physicians to our primary care environment is in single digits. We are falling behind significantly.
Jose Ozoria: Dr Bogonko says that the crisis we're currently experiencing was predicted years ago.
Doctor Edwin Bogonko: American Medical Colleges, they predicted five years ago that by 2033 we would have a shortage of between 54,000 to almost 140,000 physicians by 2033.
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Jose Ozoria: McKenzie Richards is a healthcare policy fellow with the Cicero Institute. She says that this physician shortage is already creating a strain on the system and creating a burden on current physicians.
McKenzie Richards: 29.9 percent of all Minnesotan physicians are currently at or above the typical retirement age. This could be exacerbated at any moment, because you already have a lot of physicians that could be retiring, but they're choosing not to because of the need.
Jose Ozoria: Dr Bogonko points out that along with an aging physician pool, there are very specific reasons for the physician shortage.
Doctor Edwin Bogonko: The business of running a practice is becoming more and more marginal because of federal health policies. The other dynamic is that physicians are starting practice with mountains and mountains of school debt. Instead of going back to their communities, they're choosing to stay in school to get the much higher-paying specialties that can double their income so that they can pay their school debt.
Jose Ozoria: But this crisis is not a problem without some potential solutions. Ms. Richards gives us one possible solution to this growing medical crisis.
McKenzie Richards: Minnesota recently passed through the omnibus bill that was in the special session, HF2. In that bill, there was some language for international medical graduates to be able to practice in Minnesota under a limited license. This can help attract talented physicians from abroad to be able to work in Minnesota.
Jose Ozoria: Dr Bogonko feels that there are a combination of things that could be done to potentially eliminate the developing crisis.
Doctor Edwin Bogonko: Collaborate with all these different groups that are really intent on introducing young people with science and technology backgrounds to consider health care as a career. We don't have the investment in training more doctors. So if we can do that and also add the idea of loan forgiveness, we could mitigate some of those shortages.
Jose Ozoria; For North Star Stories, I'm Jose Ozoria.
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ANCHOR: You are listening to North Star Stories.
Special education students in northeastern Minnesota will soon have a new facility. Workers recently broke ground on Northland Learning Center's new school in Mountain Iron, which is about 70 miles northwest of Duluth. It is set to open next year. The 17-million-dollar facility includes elementary, high school, and alternative learning classrooms. Northland Learning Center provides special education and support services to more than 15 hundred youth and adults across northeastern Minnesota.
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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.