WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have joined U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) in introducing the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Support Reauthorization Act to ensure that children’s hospitals have the support they need to provide adequate medical education and training for pediatricians and other residents. Specifically, this bipartisan legislation would reauthorize funding for the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program. This program provides funding to over 50 children’s hospitals around the country, including Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.  

“Children and families all across the country will benefit from this program,” said Murphy and Blumenthal. “It should be a no-brainer that we train more pediatricians and improve quality of care at children’s hospitals around the nation. This is the best investment we can make in institutions like Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and in keeping our kids healthy.” 

“Connecticut Children's is the academic home for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and we serve as the principal training site for the university’s pediatric residency program, the pediatric fellowship programs, and medical student pediatric education. We enroll 63 pediatric residents at any given time,” said James E. Shmerling, DHA, FACHE, President and CEO of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “We are grateful for Senator Murphy and Senator Blumenthal’s leadership and longstanding support for CHGME. America’s children rely on the training provided by hospitals like ours that receive CHGME funds because a robust pediatric workforce is essential to ensuring that all children can access high-quality medical care.”

For over a decade, the CHGME program has provided children’s teaching hospitals with federal support for job training for physicians who care for children. The program was first enacted by Congress in 1999 with bipartisan support, and has been reauthorized three times since then, each time with broad bipartisan support. Before the CHGME program was created, the number of residents who trained in freestanding children’s hospitals declined by over thirteen percent. The CHGME program has reversed that trend, and today these hospitals train approximately half of all pediatricians.

In addition to Murphy, Blumenthal, Casey, and Isakson, U.S. Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) are cosponsors of this legislation.

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