Zincwarrior
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- Nov 18, 2021
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Is this an issue in your area? I know in NorthEast Texas with the MIL hospital space is a big issue as its often hard to get her into one.
kffhealthnews.org
Doctor Shortages Distress Rural America, Where Few Residency Programs Exist - KFF Health News
Patients in rural northeastern Nevada soon will have fewer providers and resources, after a local hospital decided to close its medical residency program. Nationally, the number of rural residency slots has grown during the past few years but still makes up just 2% of programs and residents...
kffhealthnews.org
ELKO, Nev. — Anger, devastation, and concern for her patients washed over Dr. Bridget Martinez as she learned that her residency training program in rural northeastern Nevada would be shuttered.
This story also ran on CBS News. It can be republished for free.
The doctor in training remembered telling one of her patients that, come July of this year, she would no longer be her physician. Martinez had been treating the patient for months at a local health care center for a variety of physical and psychiatric health issues.
“She was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’” Martinez said. “It almost set her back, I would say, to square one. That’s so distressing to a patient.”
Martinez and three other resident physicians make up more than a third of the family practice providers at a health clinic in Elko, a city of about 20,000 people in the largely rural 500-mile stretch between Reno, Nevada, and Salt Lake City. Another patient cried and said she was unsure who her provider would be once Martinez returned to Reno to finish training.
Established in 2017, the rural family medicine training program in Elko is shutting down for a variety of reasons, including financial struggles, lack of a united support system, and a historical lack of health care investment in the area. Experts say systemic factors are common barriers to establishing and sustaining training programs for doctors throughout rural America.
More than 100 million people, or nearly one-third of the nation, have trouble accessing primary care, according to a recent study published by the National Association of Community Health Centers. This number has nearly doubled since 2014. The pandemic worsened provider shortages nationwide, but the problem is more acute in rural areas, which have long struggled to recruit and retain doctors and other medical professionals. Researchers say the relative lack of providers is one reason people living in rural areas experience worse health outcomes than people who live in urban areas.
Experts say expanding the number of medical residency training programs in rural areas is key to filling gaps in care because many doctors — including more than half of family medicine physicians — settle within 100 miles of where they train. And while the number of training programs has increased in rural areas during the past few years, research shows 98% of residencies nationwide are in urban areas.
