So what can be done to encourage them to pursue, uh, what feels like a role that can be extremely fulfilling?

Yes, definitely.

So the rural healthcare workforce has been a problem, you know, for a long time, not, not just the years that our study looked at.

Um, and there have been solutions that have been functioning in different areas.

One is there's a, a group called the Rural Medical Training Collaborative, and this is a group, um, really across specialties now that is looking at how to provide technical assistance for hospitals, um, medical centers, other healthcare institutions who want to develop a training program in a rural site.

So, um, the most, the most one that you think about for primary care would be a family medicine residency.

I'm, I'm aware from my national work that there are many excellent family medicine residencies that are already based in rural areas.

So with that in mind, how should communities be thinking about delivering care differently?

Can you paint a picture of what day-to-day life looks like for a rural family physician right now and the challenges that they're facing?

Sure.

Well, please know that the study that we did did not look at individual practices.

I myself was in a rural practice a number of years ago and have many colleagues who are in rural practice.

So again, it's variable.

There are family physicians who work in a medical community.

For example, Jones Hospital, that's one of the UR affiliates.

So panel size