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Scholarship, loan program a win-win for doctors, patients

Physicians are eligible for awards under the National Health Service Corps to help them pay off student loans -- if they agree to practice in underserved areas.

By Damon Adams, amednews staff. April 1, 2002.

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The federal government is shelling out more money this year to get doctors and other health care professionals to work in underserved communities.

The National Health Service Corps is offering $89.4 million in scholarships and loan repayments to medical students, doctors and others willing to serve in rural and inner-city areas where residents lack adequate access to medical care. That's roughly $19 million more than last year -- funding for more than 1,300 new and continuing scholarships and loan repayment awards.

"Many students go into medicine hoping to improve the lives of the poor and the uninsured, but graduate with too much debt to pursue such a calling. The National Health Service Corps makes it possible for hundreds of young doctors and clinicians to answer that call," U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said in a statement.

The NHSC, managed by HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration, is part of HHS' efforts to increase access to care in rural and inner-city communities. About 53 million Americans live in communities without access to primary care, according to the NHSC.

The scholarships and loan repayments play a vital role in supplying physicians to areas that need doctors, said Steve Wilhide, executive director of the National Rural Health Assn. in Washington, D.C.

"It's absolutely critical," he said.

That's an opinion shared by Barbara Patridge, MD, an ob-gyn in Georgetown, Ohio. She was a struggling first year medical student from a lower middle-class family in South Dakota when she applied for an NHSC scholarship in 1978. [...]