Homegrown doctors key to staffing

Scholarships attempt to solve physician shortage in rural areas.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Aug. 4, 2003.

Steve Spence, MD, is glad to be home.

Marianna, Fla., 66 miles from Tallahassee, may be the middle of nowhere for some, but it's where Dr. Spence and his wife grew up and where both his and his wife's parents live. And the townspeople hope he'll stay.

Dr. Spence is the first physician to return after taking advantage of an offer from his hometown's local hospital to give him $6,000 each semester for medical school if he promised to come back and set up a practice.

Faced with a persistent shortage of physicians and growing difficulty recruiting and keeping them, Jackson Hospital decided to offer the scholarships to local students in an effort to get a return on the investment.

When they return as doctors, their loan is forgiven in three years. If the doctor reneges, the debt can be paid off at 10% interest.

Many rural hospitals are facing the same chronic physician shortages as Jackson Hospital, and at least a handful of them are using the scholarship approach to address the problem.

The National Rural Health Assn. says rural areas have about half as many physicians as urban areas serving the same size population base.

Nearly 90% of all specialists practice in urban areas, according to the NRHA, leaving rural areas largely unserved.

Ken McBain, CEO of the Community Health Center in Casper, Wyo., and a member of a National Rural Health Assn. task force on rural health policy, said it's no surprise hospitals are getting creative in their recruiting.