Training physicians in rural Kansas--and hoping they'll stay there

The University of Kansas is taking a somewhat novel approach to the shortage of primary care doctors in rural America: going to rural (or at least nonmetropolitan) America to educate doctors. The New York Times reports today on a new medical school in Salina, Kansas, population 46,006, which has an entering class this fall of eight students. The program is similar to one with some of the same aims at the University of Indiana in Terre Haute.

This excerpt from A.G. Sulzberger's story contrasts the experience that Salina students will have with those at the University of Kansas's "state-of-the-art medical and research facilities in Kansas City":

It will be a different experience, one that administrators say will better prepare students for the realities of a rural practice. Lectures on subjects like anatomy will be delivered via streaming video, lab work will be overseen by more practicing generalists and fewer academic specialists, and the problems of patients will tend more to the everyday than to the extraordinary.

And, the thinking goes, spouses picked up along the way are less likely to complain about moving to a small town.

This last part seems a critical component of the strategy because keeping the new doctors (and their families) interested in rural living is key to getting and keeping them engaged in rural practice.

Sulzberger notes other strategies policy makers have used in recent years to ameliorate the shortage of rural physicians, including recruiting students from rural areas and giving them preference in admissions, guaranteeing admission and/or forgiving loans for those who commit to rural practice, and encouraging students to spend time training in a rural locale.

In Kansas, the shortage of medical professionals has become acute in recent years--and it is expected to worsen as more physicians retire. A "vast majority" of Kansas is under-served, according to Sulzberger's report, with five counties lacking even a single physician.

Salina is the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, a micropolitan county with a population of 54,076. It is in north central part of the state.