The students will be assigned to the North Central Medical Education Network Site in Salina. Charles Allred, MD, Director of the Smokey Hills Family Practice Residency Program, will coordinate the program. Ken Kallail, PhD, Office of Academic and Student Affairs, helped to draft the plan. Rural primary care physicians provide continuous and comprehensive health care to the whole community. Yet their practice is distinguished from the urban practice in a number of areas.
Rural physicians practice with fewer resources and fewer colleagues.
They tend to provide a wider range of services and perform more office procedures than urban physicians. Their relationships with patients more often overlap into other areas of life, both personal and professional. Third-party mechanisms often are fewer in rural communities and reimbursement is less. Vertically - integrated health care systems are not as well established. These shortages are projected to remain for several years, while those I metropolitan counties will decline and ultimately disappear.