A family doctor's experience in rural Arizona with the National Health Service Corps -- health manpower aspects.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Byrd AR III
• Description:
  Practicing medicine in a rural setting was discussed. The author's experiences as a family practitioner practicing in Benson, Arizona under the the auspices of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) were discussed with reference to the problems of obtaining health and medical manpower for rural areas. The demographic characteristics of Benson were described. Benson is a farming and ranching community of 3,500 located about 50 miles southeast of Tucson. The Benson area has a catchment area of about 5,000 to 6,000 patients. Approximately 65 percent of the inhabitants are Anglo/American and 35 percent Mexican/American. The NHSC and the NHSC clinic system were discussed. The NHSC system is a federal program consisting of around 500 clinics which deliver medical care to approximately 170,000 patients nationwide in underserved rural areas. The role of physician extenders was discussed. Physician extenders act to extend the skills of the physician by performing certain diagnostic and treatment tasks at a level of skill and responsibility intermediate between that of a physician and nurse. It was noted that providing treatment to residents of the Benson area would be impossible without physician extenders. The author concludes that the NHSC is helping to solve the medical manpower shortage in rural areas and that physician extenders are helping to alleviate the rural health care delivery problem. He recommends that the NHSC program be continued and expanded. Greater emphasis should be placed on persuading doctors to practice in rural areas. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Health Personnel Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  NIOSH-Grant; Grants-other; Health-care-facilities; Medical-treatment; Health-care-personnel; Physicians; Agricultural-workers; Sociological-factors
• Publisher:
  International Association of Agricultural Medicine
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Arizona ; Iowa ; OSHA Region 7 ; OSHA Region 8 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  374-379
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00184083
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the VII International Congress of Rural Medicine, September 17-21, Salt Lake City, Utah. International Association of Agricultural Medicine, 1978 Sep; :374-379
• Contact Point Address:
  Prev Med & Environmental Hlth University of Iowa Inst/agric Med & Environ Hlth Iowa Oakdale, Iowa 52319
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1978
• NORA Priority Area:
  Other Occupational Concerns ; Grants Other
• Performing Organization:
  University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19770201
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the VII International Congress of Rural Medicine, September 17-21, Salt Lake City, Utah
• End Date:
  19800229
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7dc847c09aedf140bc731323e8446b4703641ae07d6ad9e7b7238120dab30b8f7dcaa9b938d34d035f87873a0fe7fec262d5d13dcaf290925445e82b6de3b57d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/242693/cdc_242693_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 168.02 KB ]