Dear Colleagues,
One of the growing challenges here in Missouri and across the country is access to a primary health care provider, especially in rural areas.
According to the American Medical Association, more than 65% of our nation’s rural communities have a shortage of primary care doctors. The shortage means rural residents across the country are often not getting the treatment they need, and this lack of care is taking a toll on their health and life expectancy.
The MU School of Medicine recognized this looming crisis in 1995 and launched the Rural Scholars Program exactly 30 years ago to address this challenge here in Missouri.
Our Rural Scholars Program offers a variety of experiences that encourages physicians to move into rural practice. These experiences include lectures, mentoring and clinical programs centered around care in rural Missouri in the hopes they will consider a rural community for practice.
A key component of the Rural Scholars Program is the Lester Bryant Scholars Pre-Admissions Program. This program is available to undergraduate students from rural Missouri and allows for conditional pre-admission to the MU School of Medicine. Undergraduate candidates apply during their sophomore year. If accepted, they enter a program that exposes them to rural health care, the MU School of Medicine curriculum and prepares them for medical school. If they maintain a high GPA and achieve an MCAT score of 500 or higher, they matriculate into the medical school.
Once they are admitted to medical school, the Rural Scholars Program includes a variety of opportunities for the students to immerse themselves in rural medical practice. This begins with the Summer Community Program where rising second-year medical students are exposed to rural medical opportunities during the summer between the first and second year of medical school.
When students begin their third year, in which the focus is on the clinical experience, the rural scholars complete clinical rotations in rural settings. During their third year, students will either complete three core clerkships at a rural site or they may choose to participate in the year-long rural Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship. The Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LINC) is unique in that it allows a medical student to meet all their required clinical experiences while assigned to a rural clinical training site. They experience continuity of care firsthand by following select patients over multiple health care settings and across specialties. Then, in their fourth year, the Rural Elective Program allows medical students to complete their clinical electives in rural settings.
Since its inception, the Bryant Scholars Program has produced 178 doctors, and more than 64% practice somewhere in Missouri, with half practicing in rural Missouri. Even more exciting, 43% practice medicine in the critical shortage areas of family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.
We believe this is one of the most successful programs in the country when it comes to guiding physicians to practice in rural regions.
I want to congratulate Dr. Kathleen Quinn, who led the Rural Scholars program for many years prior to her retirement in late 2024. Over the course of her nearly 25 years guiding these programs, Dr. Quinn established and leveraged statewide partnerships with organizations, communities and health systems to provide our medical students educational opportunities and clinical experiences across rural Missouri.
The rural program physicians we’ve produced consistently enter rural practices at rates well above the national average. Congratulations to Dr. Quinn on a job well done. The program is now under the direction of Dr. Kevin Kane, senior associate dean for medical education. He is supported by Rural Scholars Medical Director Dr. Whitney LeFevre and Jana Lee, program director.
I am so excited by the progress we’ve made over the past 30 years, and I’m hopeful our Rural Scholars Program will continue to make a difference for Missourians for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Rick Barohn, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine
rbarohn@health.missouri.edu
