National Rural Health Day is coming this week, and two pyysicians at Newman Regional Health discussed the need for extensive medical services in rural settings on KVOE’s Morning Show on Tuesday.
Originall from Andover, Dr. Kaitlyn Tennyson says she was drawn to medicine from a relatively early age. She attended Southwestern College and the University of Kansas campus in Salina before getting her residency in western Colorado. She says rural medicine is “all I have ever known,” and she says there are service gaps, notably with specialties, many core services are handled well locally.
Dr. Jordan Willis, among the most recent additions to Newman Regional’s staff, is originally from near the Kansas City metro area and attended Manhattan Christian College before going to Kansas State, the University of Kansas for medical school, time in Wichita for residency and additional time in Mississippi for a sports medicine fellowship. He wasn’t initially drawn to medicine, but he says he was always interested in rural medicine once he took that career path. He says rural students need to realize careers in medicine are attainable.
This year, National Rural Health Care Day is Thursday. The Health Resources and Services Administration kas been marking Rural Health Day since 2010 as a way to highlight the challenges rural residents have in accessing a range of healthcare services as well as some of the programs and policies involved at the state and national level to help increase access to medical care.
Click here for the link to the HRSA National Rural Health Care Day information page.
