UC Davis med school trains physicians to serve rural areas

A story on the UC Davis website spotlights "country doctors" and reports on the recently launched Rural-PRIME program at the University's medical school. The program trains medical students for careers in rural primary-care medicine. Here's an excerpt:

“We will have a doctor shortage of 17,000 physicians in five years and a large part of those are in rural areas,” said Donald Hilty, medical director of Rural Medical Education at the UC Davis Health System. “The population is growing and we have a generation of physicians that are about to retire and the ones that do train disproportionally settle in urban areas.”

With training in public health issues, telemedicine and other technologies, students receive a combined medical doctorate and master’s degree in public health, medical informatics or another health field. The training sites in California are located in Truckee, Reedley and Jackson.

Our campus is a partner with six other UC schools, with 250 students at seven UC campuses (Davis, Irvine, UCLA, San Diego, San Francisco, Berkeley and Riverside). Rural-PRIME is expected to grow to 300 students next year.

See a related video here.