A 15-year study of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Rural Health Opportunities Program (RHOP) released this month indicates that 57 percent of graduates are practicing in Nebraska rural communities and 10 percent are practicing in rural communities in other states.
The RHOP program is a collaboration between Chadron State College, Wayne State College and UNMC. Students applying for RHOP are considered on three criteria: their academic potential, residency in a rural Nebraska community and their commitment to practice in a rural community upon graduation.
To date, 290 RHOP students have graduated and 188 are currently enrolled and attending Chadron, Wayne State or UNMC.
"The RHOP program is a model for the nation in how a partnership between an academic health center, rural undergraduate colleges and local communities can effectively help meet the health care needs of rural people," said Keith Mueller, Ph.D., associate dean for academic affairs in the UNMC College of Public Health.
The RHOP program, which accepted its first students in 1992, has developed a significant pipeline of health professionals for rural Nebraska. Unique to this program in comparison to other programs across the United States is that it pre-admits students to one of nine different health professions at UNMC upon enrollment in their undergraduate studies. Those include: medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, dental hygiene, clinical lab science, nursing, physician assistant, physical therapy and radiography.
"The intent of the program is to select students from rural communities, develop a mentoring relationship with them while at a rural state college and provide them with rural training opportunities during enrollment at UNMC,” said Roxanna Jokela, director of the Rural Health Education Network, which oversees the RHOP program.
“The students enter this program through what we call a ‘commitment of the heart.’ RHOP students do not sign any papers requiring them to work in a rural community upon graduation but we want to select the students who sincerely have an interest in providing health care for rural America," Jokela said.
Of the RHOP medical graduates who have completed residency training, 67 percent have remained in Nebraska, 53 percent are practicing in a rural community in Nebraska and 10 percent are practicing in rural communities in other states.There are RHOP graduates working in 42 of the 93 counties in Nebraska.
Nearly 58 percent of all RHOP graduates, regardless of the state where they practice, do so in communities with less than 25,000 people, and 68 percent practice in population centers with less than 50,000 people.
"I am pleased to see the success of this innovative rural workforce approach," said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. "This is the type of innovative approach that could be replicated in other states to address rural workforce shortages."
To see a full copy of the report go to the Nebraska Center for Rural Health Research Web site at www.unmc.edu/nebraska/data-reports or contact Jokela at rjokela@unmc.edu, (402)559-9509.