Physician manpower for rural America: summary of a WAMI region conference

Although legislators have intermittently focused their attention on physician manpower issues, the needs of rural America for physicians remain unmet. These needs will not be met unless there is an adequate supply of physicians receptive to and appropriately trained for the challenges and opportunities of practice in a rural community. A declining interest by matriculating and graduating medical students in primary care practice makes it problematic that the needs of rural America can be met in the near future unless medical schools attempt to reverse the trends in medical students' specialty choices. In October 1989, the University of Washington School of Medicine conducted a working conference on physician manpower issues facing rural communities in Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The discussions and conclusions of this conference about increasing the percentage of graduates entering rural practice apply to other regions of the country, and this paper summarizes the conference's recommendations.