In Rural Health Care Deserts, Some Practitioners Ensuring Their Community Will Get Care After They Retire
Rural areas have been hit hard by the financial changes in the health care landscape. As states and local governments struggle to ensure access to the vulnerable communities, some providers take measures into their own hands.
Georgia Health News:
Rural Remedy: Mercer Med School Brings Care To ‘Areas Of Need’
To fill in some physician gaps, the Medical College of Georgia is planning new incentives for med students to practice in rural areas by reducing tuition and shortening their time in school. Mercer also has such a program. Mercer Medicine says its two new facilities in Peach and Clay counties will provide an educational component for rural physicians, management services and will help in the placement of future physicians. (Miller, 10/8)
Kaiser Health News:
They Enrolled In Medical School To Practice Rural Medicine. What Happened?
The University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina opened in 2011 — a one-building campus in the heart of wheat country dedicated to producing the rural doctors the country needs. Now, eight years later, the school’s first graduates are settling into their chosen practices — and locales. And those choices are cause for both hope and despair. Of the eight graduates, just three chose to go where the shortages are most evident. Two went to small cities with populations of fewer than 50,000. And three chose the big cities of Topeka (estimated 2018 population: 125,904) and Wichita (389,255) instead. (Weber, 10/9)
