Rural Areas in New York State Have Trouble Recruiting Doctors

Small, rural areas in New York state are having difficulty attracting physicians, which can lead to longer waits for patients, the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports. According to the Medical Society of the State of New York, 1,966 doctors were practicing in the 14-county Southern Tier region of the state in 1999, the last year for which statistics are available. Specifically, there are 52 doctors for 50,704 Chenango County residents, 45 for 46,362 Delaware County residents, 29 for Tigoa County's 52,216 residents and 519 for Broome County's 195,246 residents. In Maine, N.Y., located in Broome County, the doctor's office has been vacant for eight years, leaving residents to drive up to 22 miles for care in Binghamton, N.Y., according to town Supervisor Theodore Woodward. Dr. Martin Masarech, the only doctor in Greene, N.Y., said that in some cases, money is a "barrier between doctors and rural areas." He added that many physicians "are drawn by the lure of huge salaries ... in urban areas." Other doctors say that urban settings offer them a "wider variety of specialties," and some may not want to deal with the heavier workload of rural practices. Dr. Linda Powell, who practices in Odessa, Wash., a small, rural town, said, "If you're the only doctor, you're on call an awful lot." The "quality of patient care, though, doesn't seem to be an issue," the Press & Sun-Bulletin reports. To recruit more doctors to rural areas, the state has used scholarships and student loan incentives in exchange for doctors working "a few years in small towns" (Nogas, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, 6/3).