Veterans-Specific Education for Tomorrow's Health Professionals Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Takano for his staunch leadership for veterans in so many arenas and for moving this bill through his committee. I also want to thank Ranking Member Phil Roe for his continued bipartisan support and encouragement.

H.R. 1271, the Vet Health Professionals Act, Vet HP Act for short, also called the Veterans-Specific Education for Tomorrow's Health Professionals Act; I am honored to speak on its behalf this evening.

By expanding opportunities for future physicians interested in serving our Nation's veterans, this legislation will lay the groundwork to help fill, as was mentioned earlier, the Department of Veterans Affairs' nearly 50,000 medical vacancies by creating a viable pipeline for future physicians.

The Vet HP Act creates a 3-year pilot program that will operate in at least five VA medical centers for premed students to gain clinical observation experience, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of veterans' specific health needs and experiences. We have heard about some of those this evening.

Several years ago, three premed students--and I will put their names into the Record--Andrew Frank, Seamus Caragher, and Michael McNamara-- highlighted to my team that included Andrea Kaman, Nora Sarsour, Carrie Swope, and more recently Margaret McGuinness, our legislative assistants, the struggles that disadvantaged minority and other young people who lack personal connections face as they apply for medical school.

Health schools recommend or require clinical observation hours, but there is no formal process to apply for these hours. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, in the field of neuropsychiatry it is particularly difficult. Opportunities to shadow are limited and are often based on where you go to school or whom you know.

Students who attend schools outside major cities as well as those whose families lack connections to the medical community find it harder to shadow and are disadvantaged in medical school admissions. This places an unfair burden on otherwise qualified students who come from less affluent communities or even rural areas.

Through their own struggle to access clinical observation experience, the students realized an immense opportunity. This bill prioritizes students in medically underserved areas, first-generation college students, students referred by minority-serving institutions, and veterans themselves.

It also prioritizes training for students who specialize in health professions where there is an identified staffing shortage. This important bill will help narrow the professional gap and ensure we are training premed students in careers that are in demand and necessary. For example, the three VA medical centers that service our constituents in Ohio are located in Cleveland, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the city of Detroit. They currently have--this is an amazing number--542 medical and dental staff vacancies.

How are we to serve veterans when we don't have enough doctors and medical professionals to do it?

This bill creates an important shadowing opportunity for health students and will help strengthen the workforce with a pathway going into the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Importantly, premed students in this pilot program will gain a deeper understanding of veterans' specific health needs and experiences, which is critical for health professionals who treat veterans.

One of our top responsibilities as a Congress is to ensure that America's veterans receive top quality and timely healthcare from highly trained professionals. This bill furthers that effort, and I am pleased it will get a vote this evening.

I would like to thank, again, Chairman Takano and Ranking Member Roe for bringing this bill to the floor.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the bill's passage to strengthen medical care inside our veterans' healthcare system and help the future be built through our work here tonight.

Mr. DAVID P. ROE of Tennessee.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I strongly support this bill. I have spent much of my time over the years mentoring students both in high school, college, and in medical school. I have taught on the clinical faculty at East Tennessee State University College of Medicine.

I tell the students: Look, you really need to think about going into medicine if you like to work nights, weekends, and holidays.

That is not usually how I start the conversation. But I look back as a young man when I started, and I ask myself, having now been serving in the U.S. Congress, what would I do if I had those choices all over again?

Unequivocally, I would go back to the examining room and back to the operating room and take care of patients. It is a phenomenal way to help people. I think we have to share that.

I am a first-generation college graduate in my family, as many of us are who serve in this body, and I want to thank both the chairman for his tremendous support for medical education in the Choice bill that we passed--it is hard to believe--5 years ago, Mr. Speaker, when the scandal in Phoenix occurred. We put in that bill 1,500 residency slots at VAs in primary care so that we would encourage those young doctors to stay where they are training. Many of us will do that; we will stay where we have done our training.

So I want to thank Congresswoman Kaptur for her interest in this. I thank the students she brought up. Those are the future doctors who are going to be caring for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill, I urge my colleagues to, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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