Right now, only 9 percent of doctors live in rural areas, while 20 percent of the U.S. population is based there, according to current research. But medical schools could help close this gap. In fact, if each medical school added a rural training program, they would more than double the number of new graduates going into rural practice, according to a study in the journal Academic Medicine. The study estimated that if each of the 125 allopathic medical schools committed 10 seats per class to a rural training program--producing 1,139 new rural doctors a year--that would far exceed the current flow of graduating students to rural areas. This would help ease the burden of care in rural areas, which are not only underserved by volume, but also include many older, sicker residents, researchers said.
To learn more about the study:
- read this AMNews piece
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