340. Rural Health
340.998 Rural Health
The Colorado Medical Society (CMS) supports and encourages rural training track residency programs in order to assist rural physicians and rural medicine and to increase the number of well-trained, broadly skilled rural physicians.. The CMS encourages other primary care specialties, along with Family Practice, to develop similar training programs. The CMS also encourages the improvement of training in traditional residency sites to teach broad-based skills to better qualify residents for rural practice. The CMS encourages the cultivation of an educational environment more supportive of rural primary care by:
- Promoting changes at the medical school, which include consideration of a rural rotation for all first year residents and students, and encouraging faculty visits to rural areas;
- Working with the Medical Student Component of CMS to mobilize students to work for a more favorable environment for the training of rural physicians;
- Promoting the medical students’ mentor program to encourage and facilitate rural physician participation; and
- Utilizing the CMS network of physicians to develop rural sites for use in conjunction with the medical education in an effort to get students out to rural areas and increase their interest in rural primary care. In an effort to improve the financial situation for rural physicians so as to encourage more physicians to choose rural practice and retain those currently in rural Colorado, the CMS encourages public and private payers to eliminate fee differentials, which result in reduced payment in rural fee schedules.
(RES-51, AM 1994; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)