To the Editor: In her Editorial on commitment to community, Dr DeAngelis1 discussed many of the reasons for the longstanding physician maldistribution by specialty (primarily primary care) and geography. She also included a number of potential solutions, many of which have been implemented in the past with limited success.
However, the Editorial did not mention comprehensive medical school programs that focus admissions on medical school applicants who intend to practice in rural areas, have a longitudinal rural clinical curriculum, or both. This approach has been in existence for decades and has been shown to successfully address both the primary care and rural physician shortage.2 - 3 A systematic review found that among more than 1600 graduates from 6 such medical school programs in different areas of the country, more than 50% practiced in rural areas.3 The majority of these graduates were practicing family medicine. Outcomes from the Jefferson Medical College rural program have also shown a long-term (11- to 16-year) rural family medicine retention rate of 79%,4 higher than that of the National Health Service Corps. Medical school programs focusing on the urban underserved have also been shown to be successful.5
Financial Disclosures: Dr Rabinowitz reported receiving Health Resources and Services Administration training grants, which in part provide support for the Thomas Jefferson University rural program.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
Instructions
Comments are moderated and will appear on the site at the discretion of the Journal of American Medical Association editors. Comments should not exceed 500 words of text and 10 references.
Do not submit personal medical questions or information that could identify a specific patient, questions about a particular case, or general inquiries to an author. Only content that has not been published, posted, or submitted elsewhere should be submitted. By submitting this Comment, you and any coauthors transfer copyright to the journal if your Comment is posted.
* = Required Field
Disclosure of Any Conflicts of Interest* Indicate all relevant conflicts of interest of each author below, including all relevant financial interests, activities, and relationships within the past 3 years including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, grants or funding, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers’ bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued. If all authors have none, check "No potential conflicts or relevant financial interests" in the box below. Please also indicate any funding received in support of this work. The information will be posted with your response.
Register and get free email Table of Contents alerts, saved searches, PowerPoint downloads, CME quizzes, and more
Subscribe for full-text access to content from 1998 forward and a host of useful features
Activate your current subscription (AMA members and current subscribers)
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.
and access these and other features:
Register Now
Enter your username and email address. We'll send you a reminder to the email address on record.
Athens and Shibboleth are access management services that provide single sign-on to protected resources. They replace the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session. It operates independently of a user's location or IP address. If your institution uses Athens or Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.