In 2022, when IUP set out to explore the possibility of opening a college of osteopathic medicine, the impetus was to train more physicians so they could help meet the healthcare needs of rural Pennsylvanians, an underserved population.
President Michael Driscoll and Miko Rose sign a clinical training affiliation agreement.
Three years into this effort, Miko Rose, dean of that proposed medical college, aims to get to the bottom of what makes physicians stay in rural areas. The result is a collaboration between IUP and the Center for Rural Pennsylvania on a study, “Understanding Physician Retention in Rural Pennsylvania,” that will survey more than 6,500 physicians in rural practices and, to help with data analysis, 2,000 additional physicians, all in Pennsylvania.
“Past approaches have been to redesign recruitment and retention to get more students,” Rose said, “but our thinking is that we need to flip the script, to understand the qualities, characteristics, and core values of those physicians who stay in rural healthcare, and then build recruitment strategies that help us find the students that meet these criteria if we are going to move the needle on the rural healthcare crisis.”
IUP’s Applied Research Lab will compile and analyze data from the survey, which takes place this spring.
As of mid-April, IUP had secured more than $32 million in private and government funding for the proposed medical college. The university had also finalized 12 clinical training affiliation agreements for the college’s students. Four more agreements are expected to be signed by July.
Learn more about IUP’s proposed college of medicine.