"This fact sheet shows that primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are more likely to practice in rural areas than are non-primary care specialists, but are still more concentrated in urban areas."
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Featured Items
WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
January 2012
"The 14 RTTs in this study each graduated an average of two physicians per year. This rate of output is comparable to that of all 24 RTTs nationwide, which collectively matriculate about 45 to 50 new physicians annually."
Voice of America
December 21, 2011
"For the first time in modern history, more people are now living in cities than in rural areas. That includes doctors, leaving many small communities with no primary care physician. However, a new program at Kansas University may change that."
Tags: Rural
The Wall Street Journal
December 5, 2011
"A new report that offers the most comprehensive snapshot of New Yorkers' access to primary-care services to date finds that the availability and use of medical services varies strikingly within neighborhoods across the five boroughs, particularly with primary care."
Academic Medicine
November 2011
"The University of Missouri School of Medicine developed the Rural Track Pipeline Program (MU-RTPP) to increase the supply and retention of rural physicians statewide. The MU-RTPP features a preadmissions program for rural students (Rural Scholars), a Summer Community Program for rising second-year students, a six-month Rural Track Clerkship (RTC) Program for third-year students, and a Rural Track Elective Program for fourth-year students. The purpose of this study is to report the specialty choices and first practice locations of Rural Scholars, RTC-only participants, and Rural Track Clerkship Plus (RTC+) participants (students who participated in the RTC Program plus an additional MU-RTPP component)."
Tags: Pipeline
In Legislation/On the Hill
Assembly Member Ricardo Lara
August 22, 2011
"Assembly Member Ricardo Lara's (D-Bell Gardens) Assembly Joint Resolution 13 received bipartisan support in the Senate today with a 23-10 vote. AJR 13 urges the President and Congress to provide resources to increase the supply of physicians in California in order to improve access to care in underserved areas."
Ricardo Lara Newsroom
June 21, 2011
"Assembly Joint Resolution 13 by Assembly member Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) received bipartisan support in the Assembly today with a 55-6 vote. AJR13 urges the President and Congress of the United States to continue to provide resources to increase the supply of physicians in California in order to improve access to care in underserved areas."
California Medical Association
April 27, 2011
"Assembly Bill 589, Helping Doctors Provide Care in Underserved Communities, was introduced and passed out of the Assembly Business and Professions Committee Tuesday morning by a vote of 6 to 2. AB 589 was introduced by Chair of the Revenue and Taxation committee, Assemblymember Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno) and would create a scholarship program to provide up to $105,000 for medical school students who agree to practice medicine in one of California’s designated "Medically Underserved Areas" upon graduation."
Grants.gov
November 29, 2010
"To provide graduate medical education payments to support community-based training. Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education payments will cover the costs of new residency programs in community-based ambulatory primary care settings such as health centers. "
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration
July 21, 2010
News
NJ Spotlight
February 16, 2012
"Claudia Clarke, an aspiring pediatric MD, will be loaded down with $210,000 in loans when she graduates this June from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with plans to practice medicine in depressed areas where doctors are scare."
Tags: Workforce Shortage
Human Capital Blog
February 13, 2012
"Convincing a medical student, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in debt, to take a lower-paying job or move to a low-income, rural community can be a tough sell. So perhaps it’s not surprising that many new physicians gravitate toward high-paying specialties or urban sprawls with modern-day conveniences."
Tags: Rural, Social Mission
WCF Courier
January 30, 2012
"Dr. William Durbin believes family medicine is the second-best career in the world. The best? Rural family medicine."
Tags: Family Medicine, Rural
NewsOK
January 27, 2012
"An initiative designed to combat a shortage of doctors in rural Oklahoma is headed to the state Legislature."
Tags: Workforce Shortage
Green Bay Press Gazette
January 16, 2012
"Family doctors are expected to be in short supply across the country and in the Green Bay area, and the Medical College of Wisconsin says creating a campus in Northeastern Wisconsin could help keep physicians in the region."
Policy Briefs
WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
January 2012
"The 14 RTTs in this study each graduated an average of two physicians per year. This rate of output is comparable to that of all 24 RTTs nationwide, which collectively matriculate about 45 to 50 new physicians annually."
American Family Physician
December 15, 2011
"Health insurance expansion expected from the Affordable Care Act is likely to exacerbate the long-standing and critical shortage of rural and primary care physicians over the next decade. Comprehensive medical school rural programs, from which most graduates ultimately enter primary care disciplines and serve rural areas, offer policy makers an interesting potential solution."
Tags: Family Medicine, Rural
Reports
AAMC Center for Workforce Studies
November 2011
"The 2011 State Physician Workforce Data Book is an update of the 2009 State Physician Workforce Data Book, examining current physician supply, medical school enrollment, and graduate medical education in the United States. The report provides the most current data available for each state and the District of Columbia in a series of figures and tables, including the U.S. average, state median (excluding DC)1, and state rank. Additionally, the 2011 edition includes a summary table that compares the state median for the physician workforce measures in 2008 and 2010."
UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization
July 2011
This paper includes: new empirical research on rural versus urban, quality of care; new projections for rural Medicaid and insurance exchange 2014 coverage expansions; new state-by-state and county-level analysis of future pressure on primary care capacity; new models for rural care delivery and care coordination; and, new national consumer and primary care physician survey data.
Tags: Medicare/Medicaid, Rural
American Medical Association
April 1, 2011
"At a November 2010 summit, the American Medical Association (AMA) Center for Transforming Medical Education and the AMA Advocacy Resource Center, in collaboration with leaders from GME programs, state medical societies and national medical organizations, discussed state-based GME funding options. The summit’s goal was to develop successful strategies that state and regional stakeholders could embrace for political action to expand GME funding to meet state and regional medical workforce needs."
Rural Health Research and Policy Centers
April 2011
"This literature review profiles 51 publications constituting the body of evidence-based research produced by the federally-funded Rural Health Research Centers (RHRCs) from 2000 to 2010 which is relevant to the rural primary care workforce."
Council on Medical Education
April 2011
"This report summarizes: (1) current data about diversity and distribution in the physician workforce; and (2) the status and impact of initiatives to enhance physician workforce diversity and access to care in underserved areas."
Research
Agency for Health Care Research and Quality
January 2012
"This fact sheet shows that primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are more likely to practice in rural areas than are non-primary care specialists, but are still more concentrated in urban areas."
Tags: Rural, Workforce Shortage
Increasing the supply of women physicians in rural areas: outcomes of a medical school rural program
Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
November 2011
"Women physicians are less likely then men to practice in rural areas. With women representing an increasing proportion of physicians, there is concern that this could exacerbate the rural physician shortage. The Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP) of Jefferson Medical College (JMC) is one of a small number of medical school rural programs shown to be successful in addressing the rural physician shortage; however, little is known about their specific impact on women."
Tags: Rural
Academic Medicine
November 2011
"The University of Missouri School of Medicine developed the Rural Track Pipeline Program (MU-RTPP) to increase the supply and retention of rural physicians statewide. The MU-RTPP features a preadmissions program for rural students (Rural Scholars), a Summer Community Program for rising second-year students, a six-month Rural Track Clerkship (RTC) Program for third-year students, and a Rural Track Elective Program for fourth-year students. The purpose of this study is to report the specialty choices and first practice locations of Rural Scholars, RTC-only participants, and Rural Track Clerkship Plus (RTC+) participants (students who participated in the RTC Program plus an additional MU-RTPP component)."
Tags: Pipeline
American College of Surgeons Health Policy Research Institute
November 2011
"This atlas, through the use of maps and charts, will provide a picture of the supply and geographic distribution of institutions and individuals providing surgical services in an effort to help practitioners, policy makers and patients anticipate the current and future distribution and identify places with limited access to surgical services."
Rural and Remote Health
July 25, 2011
"The purpose of this study was to develop an evaluation instrument (Community Apgar Questioinnaire) useful to rural Idaho communities’ in their assessment of the assets and capabilities related to physician recruitment and retention."
Tags: Rural
