and Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) all predict a Minnesota physician shortage of between 800 to a few thousand in both primary and specialty care. Fewer medical students are choosing primary care, while lack of funding, facilities, faculty, and the federal cap on residency slots are barriers to producing more rural health csare providers. Beyond educating a new generation of providers are the added challenges of attracting them to rural practices, including recruiting costs, growing pay disparities compared to urban practices, demanding call rotations, and finding good jobs for their spouses. Traditional approaches to boosting our rural health care workforce have included grant programs that help defray the cost of clinical rotations, and student loan forgiveness programs for those willing to practice in rural communities for a specified period of time. More recently, groups like the
Healthcare Education Industry Partnership (HEIP) and HOSA– Future Health Professionals have sponsored “Scrubs Camp” for high school students, intro-
needs of rural Minnesota and American Indian communities. A Stratis Health “Building Healthier Communities” grant is helping MRHA strengthen
While roughly half of our state’s population lives in Greater Minnesota … only one-sixth of our doctors practice there.
ducing them to health care professions at an early stage. Recently, MRHA launched a student chapter to help engage health care professions students in shaping the future of rural health. The first student chapter, with about 20 student members, is appropriately located on the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus. Since 1972, the U of M Duluth campus has been a leader in educating physicians dedicated to family medicine, and serving the health care
the student chapter at Duluth, and expand it to other Minnesota campuses educating future rural providers. Student chapter activities have included student poster presentations at the annual Minnesota Rural Health Conference; a new annual “MRHA Emerging Rural Health Leader Award” recognizing an outstanding Minnesota rural health student; and education in rural health advocacy. We hope this initiative helps encourage more careers in rural health care.
Creative solutions The increasingly critical need for rural providers has also spurred more creative solutions. Minnesota is looking at ways it can better assimilate new Americans (i.e., immigrants) who are medical professionals, many of whom come to Minnesota with strong medical education and experience. Policy makers have enacted legislation allowing different health care professionals to augment our diminishing rural primary care workforce. Minnesota was the first state in the nation to pass a law creating a community paramedic, and more recently a community emergency medical technician (EMT), allowing these trained first responders to be reimbursed for providing primary care outreach in sparsely served rural areas. We are also making use of dental hygienists and other mid-level dental
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