§239l Establishment

Summary

Creates a United States Public Health Sciences Track that grants advanced degrees and focuses on team-based service, public health, epidemiology, and emergency preparedness. The Track must graduate each year at least 150 medical students (10 of those get studentships at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences), 100 dental, 250 nursing, 100 public health, 100 behavioral and mental health, 100 physician assistant or nurse practitioner, and 50 pharmacy students. The Secretary picks the sites, which must be at existing, accredited health training programs in academic health centers in regions the Surgeon General approves after consulting the National Health Care Workforce Commission. The Secretary sets other graduate numbers and must act to allow as many first-year students as the sites can handle while meeting U.S. needs for medical, dental, and nursing workers. The Track can be built in phases. The Surgeon General must create a long-term plan for continuing education that stresses patient-centered, team-based care and care coordination, and must include emergency response team experience in clinical training. The Surgeon General also must build faculty training and curricula for care settings outside big urban hospitals to keep training balanced.