Although we have not had a chance to meet formally, I would like to share with you some of my past, present, and future efforts. I hope that you will find the following useful as we consider steps to graduate more and better rural physicians.
I am a rural medical educator. There are not many of us across the nation. Studies of rural faculty only note a dozen or so with at least half their time devoted to this area. I am most appreciative that OUR MEDICAL SCHOOL has supported me over the years. Mike Sitorius hired me in December of 1992 to assist him with rural duties. It has given me a chance to work in this area on a state and national level.
I was a rural physician in Nowata, OK, from 1983-1987. I developed an innovative rural faculty development program in the nation when at East Tennessee State from 1988 -1992. The minifellowship targeted rural faculty who were developing rural medical education programs. Over the three years of this program, we trained 20 faculty directly, and over 100 through meetings and mailings. I benefited from the chance to work with these faculty on the ideas and rural programs across the nation from Florida to Alaska. I have been the Chair or Co-Chair of the Group on Rural Health for the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine for the past 5 years. I was a Public Health Service Health Policy Fellow in 1992. I have visited many of the rural practitioners in the state. It has been my privilege to work with Keith Mueller on rural physician referrals, rural managed care, and other rural health efforts.
Mike Sitorius and Jim Stageman have taught me well. There are no better rural graduate programs in the nation than those that Jim and Mike created before I got here. It is a sad fact of rural medical education that the best programs receive little recognition, something we will be changing. We also do well at the medical school level with top quality programs and teachers. We could do better in some areas, however.
Continue with a specific issue, the support of others, how you can contribute, etc.