Plan to bring medical training and doctors to rural California
Posted on January 7, 2009
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Filed Under Education, Health Care, Rural
By Randy Bayne
No one has to tell people trying to get medical care in California’s rural areas just how hard it can be. A lack of doctors and facilities often means long drives to the “big city” to get the quality care some patients need. When my mother lived in rural San Luis Obispo County she had to make trips to Stanford to get the care she needed for her heart. At the time, she had a pacemaker to keep her heart “on time”. My parents have since moved to Arizona, and in May 2007, Mom received a new heart via a transplant and is doing great.
Stories abound of people in the valley and foothills having to go to the Bay Area to get care. Availability of care and doctors is one issue, cost is another. Health care cost seem to be higher — perhaps because of supply and demand — in rural areas than in metropolitan areas. Admittedly, I don’t have facts and figures, but I’ve heard many stories of people going to the Bay Area for routine procedures because it cost less and insurers’ insistence.
I say all this to point readers to an article in the San Jose Mercury News.
State Lt. Governor John Garamendi is proposing an ambitious fast-track medical school at University of California-Merced in an effort to create more doctors for the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most physician-poor regions in the state.
Recently, my in-laws, who are in their 80’s, moved in with us in rural Amador Co. One of the problems facing them was finding a doctor close by who would take them and their plan. It was easier than we thought, but partly because my wife and I are established in the area now. Even my doctor is in Davis, a good hour drive from home, partly due to history, but finding a doctor on my medical plan in Amador just made it easier to stick with her.
The plan being proposed by Garamendi would bring more doctors and better quality health care to rural California. With more choices, perhaps health care cost would be reduced as well. Of course, the real solution to availability and cost is a single-payer system, but this proposal will help fill a void and meet an immediate need.
Garamendi plans to unveil his plan at a Thursday evening news conference in Fresno.
Entering freshmen — recruited from San Joaquin Valley high schools, with family ties to the region — would study at UC-Merced and local community colleges, then train in existing medical centers and clinics, instead of at a pricey research-oriented hospital.
They would be encouraged to train as primary care physicians and learn the challenges of practicing medicine in this vast region, where 130 languages are spoken and many residents suffer from chronic ailments such as diabetes, heart disease and respiratory ailments from dust, diesel-burning farm equipment and wood-burning stoves.
It sounds like a good program. Similar programs in Ohio and New Mexico have increased the number of rural doctors in those states, and there’s no reason the same can’t be done in California. Except for that pesky budget thingy that seems to be dashing everyone’s hopes.
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