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Book Profiles a Day in the Work Life of 10 Rural Family Physicians
Preparing a book about physician shortage in rural areas
In 2004, Howard K. Rabinowitz, M.D., director of the Physician Shortage Area Program at Jefferson Medical College, published Caring for the Country: Family Doctors in Small Rural Towns, which profiled 10 program graduates working in rural areas and discussed both the challenges and the career satisfaction they enjoy.
Key Results
- The book, Caring for the Country: Family Doctors in Small Rural Towns, focuses on 10 program graduates working in rural areas.
Rabinowitz follows each program graduate through his or her workday, presenting the broad range of medical challenges that face the rural practitioner. Encounters with individual patients are interspersed with the doctors' observations about working — and living — in rural areas, what drew them to rural practice, their medical school experiences and their encounters with issues ranging from health care policy to telemedicine.
The final chapter summarizes the experiences and discusses the challenges facing the field as it tries to address the shortage of physicians serving in rural areas.
Caring for the Country: Family Doctors in Small Rural Towns is available in bookstores and online for $29.95.
Funding
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provided $50,000 to support Rabinowitz's research from April 2002 through September 2003.