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OU-HCOM first in state for producing
rural physicians
Study ranks Ohio University Heritage College of
Osteopathic Medicine 11th
nationwide
The Ohio University Heritage College of
Osteopathic Medicine (OU-HCOM) was ranked
as one of the top U.S. medical schools
for graduating physicians who choose to
practice in rural areas.
In the study, published in the April
issue of Academic Medicine,
OU-HCOM tied for 11th place
among all medical schools in the country
granting M.D. or D.O. degrees. The
greatest percentages of OU-HCOM alumni
practicing in rural areas graduated
between 1988 and 1997.
According to the study, about 21 percent
of OU-HCOM alumni were providing medical
services in rural areas during 2005, the
year the data was collected.
“This study shows that OU-HCOM is the
number one medical school in Ohio
producing physicians who work in rural
areas,” said Dean Jack Brose, D.O. “We
are fulfilling our mission of producing
not only primary care physicians, who
are the most-needed physicians across
the country, but also physicians who
practice in areas where they are needed
the most.”
The article, written by a team from the
University of Washington (UW) School of
Medicine in Seattle, examined the
training of the U.S. rural physician
workforce to better understand the
disparities between numbers of rural and
urban physicians.
A previous study published in the New
England Journal of Medicine in 1992
identified the allopathic medical
schools that produced the most rural
physicians. The 1992 study did not
include colleges of osteopathic
medicine, but it did find that a small
subset of the nation’s medical schools
produced the majority of rural
physicians.
The UW study found that six of the top
16 colleges – two tied in fourth place
and three, including OU-HCOM, tied at 11th
– were colleges of osteopathic medicine.
The West Virginia School of Osteopathic
Medicine ranked number one with 41
percent.
“The medical schools that produced the
highest percentage of rural physicians
placed between 21 and 36 percent of
their graduates in rural areas,” the UW
authors reported. “However, several D.O.
degree-granting schools were identified
that contributed relatively high
percentages of rural physicians.
Osteopathic physicians are significantly
more likely to enter rural practice.”
The UW study showed that 18 percent of
all osteopathic medical school graduates
from the years surveyed practiced in
rural areas, compared to 11 percent of
graduates from allopathic medical
schools.
Of the physicians who practiced in rural
areas, nearly 42 percent practiced in
the primary care fields of family
medicine, internal medicine and
pediatrics.
According to OU-HCOM’s more recent
statistics, of the college’s 2,565 total
graduates, 44 percent work in rural and
underserved communities of fewer than
50,000 residents. About 11 percent of
the total number of graduates from the
college practice in Appalachia Ohio.
Approximately 54 percent of the
college’s graduates serve as primary
care providers. Of those, 37 percent
practice in family medicine, and 16
percent are currently either in internal
medicine or pediatrics.
Christopher Simpson, D.O., chairman of
OU-HCOM’s Department of Family Medicine,
noted that the college places great
emphasis on family medicine and its
important role and need in rural areas.
“Our dean is a strong supporter of
family medicine. With his help and
support, the college has encouraged
early rural experience and insists that
all third and fourth year students have
an extended family medicine experience,”
he said.
Brose noted that those figures reflect
the success of the college in meeting
its mission, mandated by the Ohio
General Assembly, to serve the health
needs of people within the Appalachian
region and other underserved
populations, and to encourage the
practice of family medicine.
“OU-HCOM values family medicine and
service in rural and underserved areas,”
Simpson said. “The admission committee
actively recruits individuals from rural
areas that are more likely to return to
rural areas.”
The study also found that medical school
graduates who enter a residency in a
rural area are more likely to remain in
a rural area to practice, and that more
women than men practice in rural areas.
“The increasing proportion of female
rural physicians is more likely
attributable to the increasing number of
female medical school graduates coupled
with a decline in the percentage of male
physicians entering rural practice,” the
report’s authors stated.
OU-HCOM’s own statistics bear out this
claim – during the past four years, the
percentage of women entering the college
has averaged 53.5 percent.
The article, “Which medical schools
produce rural physicians? A 15-year
update,” authored by Frederick Chen,
M.D., M.P.H.; Meredith Fordyce, Ph.D.;
Steve Andes, Ph.D.; and Gary Hart,
Ph.D., appears in the April issue of
Academic Medicine, vol. 85, no. 4.
To read the article, go to:
http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2010/04000/Which_
Medical_Schools_Produce_Rural_Physicians__A.17.aspx.
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