Training the rural physicians of the future.
East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine and ECU Health launched a new Rural Family Medicine Residency Program in 2021 that equips physicians with specialized training in caring for patients in rural and underserved communities.
Below, hear and read about the program, its residents and why this work is so important in eastern North Carolina.
Their Story
We sat down with two graduates of the first class of the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program to learn more about their experience training in a rural community — and why they chose to stay in the communities in which they trained following their residency.
The Challenge
Americans who live in rural areas of the nation make up about 20% of the United States population, and they often experience shorter life expectancy, higher mortality, higher rates of poverty, fewer local doctors and greater distances to travel to see health care providers, compared to their urban and suburban counterparts.
Despite these communities representing nearly 20% of the U.S. population, only 10% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas. ECU Health and Brody’s Rural Family Medicine Program aims to increase the number of physicians practicing in rural America, especially eastern North Carolina.
Studies show that family medicine residents who spent 50% or more of their training time in rural settings were at least five times more likely than residents with no rural training to practice in a rural setting. With this in mind, ECU Health leaders designed the program to bring more rural family medicine providers to eastern North Carolina.
The Program
The program is designed to give recent medical school graduates interested in serving as family medicine physicians in rural communities first-hand experience in caring for patients in the kind of under-resourced settings they plan to practice in upon completion of their residency training.
The residents spend a majority of their first year of training at ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville. They then spend the next two years training in either the rural Hertford County community of Ahoskie — at the Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center and ECU Health Roanoke-Chowan Hospital — in Duplin County at Goshen Medical Center in Beulaville and ECU Health Duplin Hospital in Kenansville — or in Roanoke Rapids at Rural Health Group Halifax Medical Specialists and ECU Health North Hospital.
The program exposes the residents to the breadth of family medicine — in both resource-abundant academic medical center environments and resource-scarce rural environments — so they are well-prepared to provide comprehensive care in a variety of practice settings.
While in the rural communities, the residents build connections with their patients and become integrated into the communities they serve.