Feature
Providing tomorrow's doctors for rural Indiana
February 1, 2007
How to get young doctors to practice in smaller towns once they've seen the big city? IU School of Medicine–Terre Haute's partnership with Indiana State University may be one way.
Andrew Powell is enjoying his first year at the IU School of Medicine thanks in part to the Rural Health Program, a partnership between IU School of Medicine-Terre Haute and Indiana State University.
With his good grades and test scores, Andrew Powell had his eyes on medical school when he graduated from high school in Worthington, Indiana. Unlike most students, though, the Indiana University School of Medicine already had its eyes on him.
Armed with a full scholarship to Indiana State University (ISU), Powell — who goes by "Drew" — knew that if he kept up the good work, he'd automatically be accepted to the IU School of Medicine via an innovative partnership between IU School of Medicine–Terre Haute and ISU.
Now a first-year medical student at IU School of Medicine–Terre Haute, Powell is among nearly 70 students who have entered the Rural Health Program, which began in 1997 as a strategy to encourage talented students from rural communities to become physicians and return to such communities to practice medicine.
Seven students have since worked their way through both ISU and the IU School of Medicine and now are working in their residency programs — the training physicians receive in their specialties after graduating from medical school. Another 15 are still IU School of Medicine students, 22 undergraduates are in the program at ISU, and a half-dozen others have decided to pursue other health-related careers, such as nursing and pharmacy.
Those numbers look pretty good to Taihung "Peter" Duong, Ph.D., the newly-appointed interim director of IU School of Medicine–Terre Haute. In fact, he says, "I really think that's the best we could hope for at the beginning."
Duong succeeded Roy W. Geib, Ph.D., who was responsible for the creation of the Rural Health Program and who recently retired as the Terre Haute center's director. IU School of Medicine–Terre Haute is one of eight regional centers for medical education across Indiana. About half of the School of Medicine's students spend their first two years at a regional campus — the final two years are spent in Indianapolis.
Students accepted into the Rural Health Program are guaranteed a medical school slot if they keep up their work. Specifically, their undergraduate grade point average must be a minimum 3.5/4.0 at the time they are ready to enter into the first year of medical school be at least as good as the mean grade point average for the IU School of Medicine class the year before. Their MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) score must be equal to the average of the previous year's entering class at the IU School of Medicine.
Powell said participating in the Rural Health Program in college has helped him during his first year as a medical student, although, he added with a smile, "I don't know if you can ever be fully prepared for medical school."
He had no family tradition to lean on; no close relatives are doctors. But the Rural Health Program has helped him get a feel for medicine with its summer programs, which include a summer shadowing a physician and a similar summer in a hospital setting. Just as important, Powell said, are the mentoring and the fact that the program students, faculty and staff "really are a big family."
For some students, the summer internships let them know right away that being a physician isn't for them, and they can leave the program without losing their scholarships.
Medical students at the Terre Haute center start shadowing physicians almost immediately in their first year, said Duong. They're also asked to volunteer monthly at a clinic for the underserved, and in the second year they spend time with residents at Union Hospital. Such experiences help students learn the culture of medicine and better understand their classroom work. It also creates ties to the local community.
Initiatives in other states similar to IU's Rural Health Program have demonstrated that students who train in a rural area, establishing relationships with local physicians and patients, are more likely to return to such an area to practice medicine, he said.
"If you take a student out of Linton and he or she attends school in Indianapolis, discovers Broad Ripple and the city, what are the chances of that student wanting to come back to Linton? I would say the chances are less than 50%," said Duong.
For his part, Powell asked that he be assigned to the Terre Haute center for his first two years of medical education. It's close to home, it's where his friends are, and he knows the faculty.
"I think Terre Haute is one of the better centers," he said.
