Published: October 10, 2008 10:05 pm         

Lugar Center gives students scholarship opportunities

Sen. Lugar encourages students working to become doctors for rural areas

TERRE HAUTE — U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar was in Terre Haute on Friday to meet with students training to become doctors serving rural areas.

“So many people want to do rural medicine,” Lugar said before meeting with dozens of medical students at the Richard G. Lugar Center for Rural Health. “People are being served in the western part of Indiana in a much better way” than before, he said.

As many as 80 medical students have started training at the Lugar Center, said Dr. Jim Turner, director of the center. The students will fill a big need for medical doctors in rural communities, he said.

“Only 4 percent of students graduating from medical school now want to work in a town of less than 25,000,” Turner said. About 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas, but only about 9 percent of the nation’s physicians live in those same areas, he added. “So it’s a challenge right there.”

A shortage of doctors in rural communities has contributed to a decrease in rural hospitals, Turner noted. In 1980, there were 8,000 rural hospitals. Today there are 5,900, he said.

Many medical students from rural areas have a desire to practice medicine in rural areas but don’t believe they will earn enough money to pay back their medical school debt, Lugar said, adding that some medical students finish their training owing up to $250,000.

The rural medical training program offered through the Lugar Center allows students to take advantage of scholarships from the state and federal government that cover tuition costs if the students agree to practice medicine in rural areas for a certain number of years, Lugar said.

“There is a tuition-free situation for many students who come into this track. … Over, say, a four-year period of time, a lot of [student] loans could be forgiven,” he said. “There is a commitment, a public service, that sort of cancels out the compensation.”

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a nationwide doctor shortage is affecting rural and inner-city residents the most. The shortage became worse after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks prompted the federal government to allow fewer foreign doctors into the country, the report said.

Turner said that while taxpayer-provided scholarships help train rural doctors, the benefit to rural communities makes the investment well worth it in terms of improved medical care for rural residents and in terms of rural economies.

A family doctor creates about $2 million worth of care annually at a hospital, he said. “This is about the economy,” Turner said. “This is about jobs. Good jobs.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.