[ti:Rural Medical School Competes With City Life] [ar:Mario Ritter] [al:Education Repor] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English Education Report. [00:05.46]Many rural areas in the United States [00:08.95]have no doctor. [00:10.66]Some medical schools are trying different ways [00:14.45]to treat the problem. [00:15.99]One idea is to educate doctors [00:19.33]in smaller communities and hope they stay. [00:23.49]Dr. William Cathcart-Rake heads a new program [00:28.56]at the University of Kansas in the Midwest. [00:32.35]WILLIAM CATHCART-RAKE: "We need more docs. [00:33.97]There's somewhere like a quarter of all of our physicians [00:37.11]in Kansas are sixty years of age or older. [00:39.64]So we need to be replacing physicians, too." [00:42.24]He says medical students from rural areas [00:45.62]now typically study in Wichita or Kansas City, [00:50.82]two of the biggest cities in Kansas. [00:54.35]WILLIAM CATHCART-RAKE: "They say, 'You know, [00:56.26]I really have every intention of coming back to rural Kansas,' [00:58.49]but they meet a soul mate, they get married, [01:00.79]their soul mate happens to be from a big city [01:03.49]and we never see them again. [01:04.78]They get captured in the big city. [01:06.27]Hopefully, if we train them in smaller communities, [01:09.36]they can meet the prospective spouses here, [01:11.75]they can network here, and they have those connections [01:15.88]which can hopefully be lifelong." [01:18.13]The program is based in Kansas' tenth largest city, [01:22.82]Salina, home to about fifty thousand people. [01:26.67]Salina is about a three-hour drive from Kansas City, [01:32.16]past fields of corn, soybeans and cattle. [01:36.54]Student Claire Hinrichsen grew up [01:39.44]in a town of about six hundred people. [01:41.93]She attended the University of Kansas, [01:45.37]or KU, as an undergraduate. [01:48.81]One reason she chose the Salina program [01:52.66]is because of the size. [01:54.61]There are only eight students [01:57.34]-- the smallest medical school in the country. [02:01.10]Classes are taught by professors in Salina [02:05.37]or on a video link from Kansas City or Wichita. [02:10.10]Ms. Hinrichsen talked about the program [02:13.50]with reporter David Weinberg. [02:16.05]CLAIRE HINRICHSEN: "I really like it. [02:17.48]I know everybody in my class. [02:18.87]We are close and it's a nice feeling. [02:22.92]I went to KU, so I went to a big school, [02:24.92]and I'm getting back to the small feel. [02:26.83]I like it a lot." [02:28.12]DAVID WEINBERG: "How do these two compare, [02:29.76]like going to KU and going here?" [02:31.35]CLAIRE HINRICHSEN: "They're a lot different. [02:32.65]My first class in general chemistry [02:35.83]in KU had more people in that lecture hall [02:38.70]than there were in my town! [02:40.04]So it was a big change and it was hard [02:46.28]to get used to having so many people there." [02:48.28]Students who complete the four-year program [02:50.87]will then do their residency training [02:53.57]in a small community in the surrounding area. [02:57.62]One place a resident might work [03:00.79]is the Clay Center Clinic, [03:03.05]where Dr. Kerry Murphy is a family physician. [03:06.96]KERRY MURPHY: "This is a clinic [03:09.00]that has currently eight doctors [03:11.98]and four mid-level practitioners and we cover, [03:16.73]of course, this town, but we also [03:18.82]have satellite clinics in two nearby towns. [03:21.49]We just kind of operate as a what I call [03:25.08]a 'cradle-to-grave operation.' [03:26.47]We deliver babies and go all the way up [03:28.89]to doing nursing home care." [03:29.99]Rural doctors generally serve older, poorer patients. [03:34.22]Going into a specialty in a big city [03:37.97]can mean better working hours [03:39.96]and more money to pay off student loans. [03:42.95]The Salina program will pay tuition for each year [03:47.85]that students practice in a rural area in Kansas. [03:53.33]And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. [03:58.39]I'm Mario Ritter.