As we've reported, small towns and rural parts of Kentucky face a shortage of doctors.

Yesterday in Morehead on National Rural Health Day, the University of Kentucky and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid announced new scholarships for UC's Rural Physician Leadership Program, which works to place doctors in underserved rural areas.

We're excited to announce today that Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has graciously donated $100,000 to scholarships to help reduce the burden of medical school costs for our students and our rural physician leadership program.

Our students spend their first two years in Lexington, and then they joined completing the initial phases of the Kentucky Integrated Curriculum.

And they join their colleagues here in Morehead.

They're connected to topnotch physicians for the staff and in fact, a physician at St Clair Health Care, a regional health care partner.

And they're immersed in small town community practice akin to what they have to do in practice one day to help students have a heart for rural communities.

Many have grown up in small towns in Kentucky or elsewhere.

When you train feature physicians with this important mission in mind, you're helping increase health care to rural communities.

And that's vital.

We know that our rural communities have a greater burden of disease.

They have a reduced life expectancy.

Some have to travel miles and miles and miles, which is very difficult just to receive care when that cares for life threatening conditions, just every little account.

I think I've learned more about serving this population and the people.

I think that's been my favorite part about starting my clinical rotations.

We were in Lexington doing our first two years of medical school and we received great training in Lexington.

I was so excited to come back and help provide the care for this area and the patients of the population.

We can't we can't replicate what it's like to practice in rural areas in Lexington, but it's not a it's not a rural area.

There.

And for students to get a sense of what it's like to practice rural medicine so they eventually return there, there's no substitute for actually learning and training in a rural area here.

So they get to be a part of this community.

They all of our students are involved in community engagement projects.

They adopt this community that a community adopts them, and so they get a sense of what it's really like to be a rural physician leader.

And this is attracted to them.

If they're trained at a larger urban sort of area, they're they never get to see this and they don't know what it's like.

And it's just mythological.

A lot of us in our program is a first generation medical student, and so the financial burden of medical school is just so daunting when we get into medical school.

That was my biggest fear.

Like, how am I going to pay for this?

I don't have anyone to ask, you know, how did how long did it take you to pay off your debt?

How long did it take for you to feel comfortable after you graduated medical school?

So having this, you know, barrier a little bit lifted is just so much better when you actually get into medical school because you know or, you know, through medical school, you know, that part of that debt is going to be alleviated.

So I think that is an incredibly incredible opportunity for the people that are wanting to serve and improve access.

Our average medical student debt in your state, Kentucky College of Medicine, is over $200,000.

So you're finishing medical school with essentially a second mortgage.

And salaries are often higher in bigger cities.

They're often higher if you're a specialist and we need more primary care doctors, we need more psychiatrists, we need more general surgeons.

General practice falls in rural areas there.

But coming out with large debt, you're disincentivized right there to practice there, even if you want to.

So by providing scholarships like this, this will reduce that that debt, that worry, that second mortgage is no longer needed by having these scholarships here.

And this will result in these students being able to chase their dreams.

You can make a huge difference in these communities.

And it's so important because you don't know how many lives you look back after your journey is complete.

The first round of recipients for the Anthem Rural Medicine Scholarship will be announced in March of 2024.