Rural Health Assn. Plan To Recruit Out-of-state Medical Staff

Getting young, out-of-state professionals to make a life and career in West Virginia is an across-the-board challenge.

The West Virginia Rural Health Association is the state’s largest rural health interest group with a mission to unite communities, people and systems to improve health care for rural West Virginians. The organization was on full display Friday in the Capitol rotunda. 

Executive Director Rich Sutphin said to improve workforce recruitment, the association is asking lawmakers to adopt a tax credit and incentive program for community-based preceptors of health profession students. 

What’s a preceptor? A hometown medical mentor to show city folks the rural ropes.  

”It’s a physician or physician assistant or nurse practitioner who takes the student on to train them in a clinical setting,” Sutphin said. “They will teach them and show them how to take care of patients beyond the theoretical things they learn in the didactic years.”

Aidan Flanagan, a third-year medical student at WVU from Chicago, said he was drawn to the Mountain State and its people.

“I’ve always had a passion for working in rural communities and primarily in underserved communities,” Flanagan said. ”I felt that after being in West Virginia for the past three years, I want to continue being here and providing care if people need it most.”

Flanagan said establishing a tax credit for preceptors would encourage more urban health professionals to follow a rural career path.

“It’s important to pair students with physicians and understand their community,” Flanagan said. “If you don’t have that relationship, then you’re not going to be able to better the community over generations.”

Flanagan said it’s also important to have financial security, but when the mission is to improve rural health care, he said he’s on board.