Rural Physician Program grows
MARQUETTE -- Rural areas like the U.P. account for 20 percent of the country, but only have 10 percent of the doctors. Experts say hiring has become increasingly difficult.
An expansion of a Rural Physician Program in the U.P. may help solve that problem.
The U.P. wasn't originally in third-year medical student Jason Kaiser's sights, but after a referral from other students, he ended up here and says this experience is unlike anything he could have in an urban area.
"From a surgery standpoint, you're first assisting, where in other communities you'd really just be in the corner, standing and watching," says Jason.
He is a student in the Rural Physician Program through the Michigan State University College of Human Medicines. Soon there'll be even more students just like him. The program is expanding to fill the need for training sites for their growing class sizes.
Marquette General says this is good news for the area, because chances are this won't be the students' last experience in the area.
"Med students, in general, when they spend time at a small community hospital, they truly form an attachment to it, so that that attachment or tug to come back can be pretty strong as they're looking to settle down in a community, oftentimes with their families," says Dr. William Short of Marquette General.
Forty-four former Rural Physician Program students have returned here to work professionally since the initial program started almost 40 years ago
The expanded Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Upper Peninsula Region Program will include training sites at medical facilities in Houghton, Escanaba and Iron Mountain. The current program holds 8 to 10 students; it'll now aim to place 16 students.
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