Rural doc recruitment tool
University of Kansas Medical School opens smallest medical school in country
SALINA, KS – The University of Kansas School of Medicine recently opened the smallest full-time medical school in the country in Salina aimed at encouraging medical students to practice in underserved rural communities.
Home to eight students, the new campus is located in a building donated by the Salina Regional Health Center. Classes will be taught both onsite by doctors in the community via interactive TV and teleconferencing from the school’s main campus in Kansas City, 150 miles to the east.
“We think this may become a model for other medical schools,” said Barbara Atkinson, executive dean of the KU School of Medicine and executive vice chancellor of the University of Kansas Medical Center. “What has made this possible is how we use the ITV and because we operate our school with a paperless curriculum.”
The move to open the Salina school came from board discussions at the KU School of Medicine as it sought strategies to increase enrollment in the medical program as well as the number of graduates committed to opening a rural practice.
“We thought the number one thing we could do to encourage this was to train doctors close to where they would practice,” Atkinson noted.
Salina was chosen as the location for the school, she said, since it already had an active residency program for the third and fourth year students from the school.
Roland Goertz, MD, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) applauds the novel approach to help ease the shortage of rural doctors.
“Rural students are underrepresented in medical schools with 6 percent or less enrolled in all the medical schools,” Goertz said.
In Kansas, the shortage of rural doctors is particularly acute, with 94 of 105 counties in the state classified by the federal government as primary care shortage areas. While recruiting rural students is a significant predictor of whether a med student may start a rural practice, an AAFP task force that has studied rural workforce issues found a different factor as the top reason for where they chose to practice: the wishes of the student’s significant other.
“If a student is going to school in a rural area for their medical education there is a much higher chance they will meet someone from the community who shares those same values,” said Atkinson. “Going to school in an urban area makes it more likely for them to meet a spouse who won’t want to live in the rural area.”
Goertz also thinks that by training in a rural area those who graduate are better equipped to handle being a country doctor.
“At these urban, large allopathic schools, located in huge academic centers in the midst of the biggest cities, the students learn to use the best of everything since it is all available,” Goertz noted. “Training to be a doctor in a rural area, they can learn that sometimes it is OK to wait – and often better for the patient – to see what develops before ordering that test.”
The AAFP’s “Rural Practice, Keeping Physicians In” study also showed this as a strong factor in rural doctor retention, noting that “physicians who feel better prepared to handle emergencies, tough medical situations and busy outpatient practices without consultants or high-level technology are more likely to stay in rural practice.”
