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MEDICAL
EDUCATION

A New Path to

PRIMARY CARE

Texas is finding innovative ways to chip away at physician shortage

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, Associate Editor Texas Magazine

West Texas is known for its oil fields, but one of its boomtowns of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) Texas College
is building a new kind of pipeline to stream a steady supply of pri- of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM) in Fort Worth. She graduated
mary care physicians to the largely rural and underserved area. Mid- from the medical school after starting her education close to home
land sits atop one of North America’s largest oil reserves, the Permian at Weatherford College and Texas Christian University, then entered
Basin, but local educators and hospital leaders say convincing doc- rural practice in West Texas postresidency.
tors to stay in the patch is often a bust.
“We now understand very well the challenges for rural Texas in
To prime the pump, Midland is looking to its own community. recruiting physicians, and predictors for who might really go into
The new well: community college students with an aptitude for a rural practice or underserved areas that are not necessarily rural but
medical career. where there’s need. And one of the best ways to get people into those
communities is to train people from those communities because they
“This really is my story,” said Lisa R. Nash, DO, a family physi- are the ones most likely to go back there,” she said.
cian and associate dean for educational programs at the University

14 San Antonio Medicine • September 2016