
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994                    TAG: 9406210380 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B1    EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA  
SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: 940621                                 LENGTH: GREENVILLE

ECU MEDICAL-SCHOOL PLAN AIMS TO BOOST RURAL CARE

{LEAD} North Carolina's premier medical school for primary-care physicians announced a new program Monday designed to steer more medical students toward practices in small towns and rural areas.

The program is underwritten by pledges of $2.3 million from a New Jersey foundation and promises of more. Medical school officials expect to spend a total $20 million over six years.

{REST} At the heart of the program is the idea of identifying as early as eighth grade students who would be inclined to become doctors in small towns, which are rapidly becoming medical wastelands.

Many medical students don't like small towns, said Dr. Thomas Irons, a pediatrician and director of the Generalist Physician Program at East Carolina University School of Medicine.

Sometimes, it's because their spouses don't want to move to a small town. Sometimes, it's because they don't like the quality of rural schools. Frequently, it's because they don't think they can earn enough money and they are afraid of being isolated from the support of a large hospital.

``The value system is wrong,'' Irons said.

``The only way they'll think differently is to go to that small community and meet the people. It can't be superficial. That's been tried before, when communities make a contract with a doctor and write letters to them. You have to really know them.''

Boosted by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, the generalist program will try to identify eighth and ninth graders who are interested in rural medicine and bring them to the medical school for an extended visit.

It will work with students in college and continue the emphasis in medical school. One facet will be a cadre of advisors at 24 colleges and universities who will steer likely students toward ECU.

The program will bring rural physicians onto the faculty as paid teachers, and medical students will be required to live in the community and work with those doctors for a period of weeks, not days as is now required.

Residents will live and work in Ahoskie and Williamston for two years. Doctors helping with the program will get business-office assistance and ECU physicians to cover their practices so they can take vacations.

by CNB