With just one year left in his residency, David Lyon felt a rush of concern when he was told of state funding cuts to MSU’s Psychiatry Residency Training Program.
The concern grew to worry as Lyon questioned his future in psychiatry and his other options for residency. The cuts - amounting to $3.62 million from programs at MSU and Wayne State University - threatened to end the psychiatry residency programs in Michigan.
“It leaves you up in limbo,” he said. “What are you going to do now? With only one year to go, that’s the home stretch, and you don’t want any problems.”
Lyon and others in the program were left in limbo until late last month, when program officials found out some of the state aid had been restored.
Until then, the father of three worried that the possible loss of the training program would force him to move his family out of state. The cuts could have also severely reduced the number of new psychiatrists in the state. Lyon said he hopes to work as a psychiatrist in the Mid-Michigan area.
“We serve the population, and the majority of our residents stay in the Michigan area,” he said. “They would lose a great deal of the psychiatric help in Lansing.”
But challenges remain for MSU’s Psychiatry Residency Training Program. Although the state restored $301,000 to the program, it usually received a $535,000 grant each year. And Wayne State, which has the only other state-funded psychiatry residency training program in Michigan, will only receive about half of the $3 million it lost in the budget cuts.
Christopher Colenda, chairman of MSU’s Department of Psychiatry, said the partial restoration will help the program, but the absence of the usual funding will be apparent.
“The funding allows the Psychiatry Residency Training Program to continue educating psychiatric resident physicians,” he said. “It also gives us time to help develop alternative funding to continue developing the program.
“We not only supply needs of the population, but we have brought considerable luster to MSU because of the innovative program.”
Jed Magen, director of the department’s residency education program, said about 80 percent of program graduates stay in Michigan and nearly 60 percent work in public-sector jobs with low-income patients. Magen said MSU’s program is an essential part of the state’s mental health community.
“We were dismayed to hear about the cut,” Magen said. “Based on the amount of psychiatrists we put out into the community, they funded us for 30-some years. I hope they look at that and determine whether it’s in the best interest of the state to continue the program.”
Kathleen Gross of the Michigan Psychiatric Society said MSU’s program recruits many psychiatrists to the state. The psychiatry training program at MSU has 15 residents, many who serve at mental health centers, clinics and facilities in the community.
“In Michigan, we’re finding we are hampered in our ability to attract psychiatrists to come to our state to practice,” she said. “The funding cut will lessen it even more. When we grow our own we’ll do much better.”
State Sen. John Schwarz, the Senate’s only practicing physician and a member of the Health Policy Committee, said the state needs to be looking at restoring all of the state aid, rather than defunding the programs.
“I don’t think it was a reasonable place to cut,” the Battle Creek Republican said. “I just think people proposed the cut at the time the executive orders were done. They didn’t understand what they were doing. The Legislature should put the money back.”
Erica Berg can be reached at bergeri1@msu.edu.
Megan Frye can be reached at fryemega@msu.edu.
