While overall medical school positions increased by more than 30% from 2002 to 2017, the number of medical students from rural backgrounds decreased by 28%, so they made up only 4.3% of the incoming medical student body in 2017, according to the study published in Health Affairs.
“In that context, I think it is pretty striking,” the study’s lead author, Scott Shipman, director of primary care initiatives and clinical innovations at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), said in an interview with FierceHealthcare.
Those students from rural backgrounds are seen as a key to meeting physician workforce needs for rural communities, he said.
“It makes sense that individuals who come from a rural background understand what life is like and what the culture of rural life is like. They are more familiar with it and more likely to consider that as a place to set up their lives and their careers in practice,” he said.
Given the 30% growth in new slots for medical students from both the creation of new medical schools and expansion of existing schools, “it’s been a period where there arguably should be opportunity for more rural students to get into medical school but we’ve seen just the opposite,” he said.
The AAMC predicts a shortage of up to 122,000 physicians by 2032, with rural and historically underserved areas experiencing those shortages most acutely. Many rural areas are already experiencing shortages of primary care and specialty physicians.
Only 11% of doctors practice in rural communities, and as of 2019 over 62% of all federally designated primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas were in rural areas, the study noted.