Sen. Brown Announces More Than $420,000 in New Federal Resources to Train Pediatric Specialists in Akron
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that Akron Children’s Hospital was awarded $421,962 in funding through the Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Payment Program. Sen. Brown authored the Children’s Hospitals Education and Research Act of 1998, which created the CHGME program, while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. The CHGME program ensures continued medical training for professionals treating children and has provided funding to seven Ohio children’s hospitals over the years.
“This is excellent news for Akron families and their children,” Brown said. “Children’s healthcare requires doctors and hospitals that specialize in pediatrics. This federal support will ensure that Akron Children’s Hospital has the resources necessary to train doctors and equip them with the tools to treat children.”
Brown has been a longtime champion of CHGME. In April 2014, he led 28 Senators in a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee seeking continued CHGME funding for Fiscal Year 2015, as he has done the past several years. In February 2013, he wrote the President to urge full funding of the program in light of the President’s budget request which would have reduced funding by 66 percent. CHGME was funded at $265 million in Fiscal Year 2014; the new law reauthorizes funding at $300 million per year.
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