Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland this week sent a letter to the governing board of New Mexico’s flagship university urging it to increase salaries for incoming resident doctors and preserve anti-discrimination language in ongoing union negotiations.
The University of New Mexico’s contract with the resident physicians union, called the Committee of Interns and Residents, expired on Aug. 31. While the contract remains in effect during negotiations, the union and university are still negotiating the levels of pay for residents at the state’s sole academic medical center.
“At a time when our state is grappling with the second-worst physician shortage in the nation, with a third of our physicians expected to retire by 2030, failure to invest in resident physicians now is a decision with long-term consequences,” Haaland wrote in the Sept. 23 letter to the UNM Board of Regents…