Sep 28, 2026 · 13 min · 6 segments
Rural America has lost more than 10% of its family physicians since 2017, according to a report published late last year. What does that mean for patients and communities? On today's episode, host J…
Colleen FogartyGuestJ. Carlisle LarsenHostSo this new report that you're the lead author of shows an 11% drop in the number of family physicians serving in rural areas starting in 2017.
When you see that number, which feels significant given the scope of rural America, what does that signal to you about the state of rural health care today?
Well, the state of rural health care is really challenged, and it's been evolving, I would say, over decades, not just only a few years ago.
I'm sure people are aware of the closure of rural hospitals or the closure of maternity units in rural hospitals.
The closure of the hospital, obviously, it has more of an impact, but the closure of a maternity unit can cause patients to have to go much further to have a hospital-based delivery.
And even the study I did was looking at family physicians in rural ambulatory practice, outpatient practice.
So some family physicians in the country practice only hospital medicine, and some may practice other kinds, which are not primary care.
So we really wanted to look at the footprint of family physicians practicing
So is this decline happening evenly across communities, or are some regions experiencing it more acutely than others?
So all of the regions that we looked at across the country have had some change.
The Northeast had the highest percentage drop, which is 15% drop over those seven years.
What our study does not look at is... as you say, there are various kinds of rural areas.
So there are some areas that are considered frontier that are hours and hours from anything.
That's a bit different from a smaller community of 20,000 that's within a reasonable drive of a major metro area.
So, and our study doesn't look at those finer gradations, but it is important that all of those types of communities
So this new report that you're the lead author of shows an 11% drop in the number of family physicians serving in rural areas starting in 2017.
When you see that number, which feels significant given the scope of rural America, what does that signal to you about the state of rural health care today?
Well, the state of rural health care is really challenged, and it's been evolving, I would say, over decades, not just only a few years ago.
I'm sure people are aware of the closure of rural hospitals or the closure of maternity units in rural hospitals.
The closure of the hospital, obviously, it has more of an impact, but the closure of a maternity unit can cause patients to have to go much further to have a hospital-based delivery.
And even the study I did was looking at family physicians in rural ambulatory practice, outpatient practice.
So some family physicians in the country practice only hospital medicine, and some may practice other kinds, which are not primary care.
So we really wanted to look at the footprint of family physicians practicing
So is this decline happening evenly across communities, or are some regions experiencing it more acutely than others?
So all of the regions that we looked at across the country have had some change.
The Northeast had the highest percentage drop, which is 15% drop over those seven years.
What our study does not look at is... as you say, there are various kinds of rural areas.
So there are some areas that are considered frontier that are hours and hours from anything.
That's a bit different from a smaller community of 20,000 that's within a reasonable drive of a major metro area.
So, and our study doesn't look at those finer gradations, but it is important that all of those types of communities
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