New Federal Funding Will Help Place More OBGYNs in Training in Rural Wisconsin Communities

Wednesday, June 19th, 2024 -- 10:00 AM

(Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin Public Radio) New federal funding will help place more OBGYNs in training in Wisconsin’s rural communities.

According to Hope Kirwan with Wisconsin Public Radio, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health will receive a $750,000 grant over the next three years to expand their rural OBGYN residency track.

The funding comes from a grant program through the Health Resources and Services Administration. Carole Johnson, administrator of the federal agency, said UW-Madison is the first recipient to use the funding for an obstetrics and gynecology residency, which she said is a high priority area.

“We are laser-focused on addressing access to maternal health care services, so we get better outcomes for moms and babies,” Johnson said. “I know that that is a critical issue in Wisconsin.” More than 40 percent of Wisocnsin’s rural hospitals do not have obstetric services, according to data from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health.

Dr. Ryan Spencer, gynecologic oncologist and project director of the Rural Residency Program Development grant at UW-Madison, said there is interest among new doctors in practicing in these communities.

He said the current rural residency program, which started in 2017, accepts one student each year. “In the last few years, we have seen over 200 applications for that single spot,” Spencer said, adding the interest outpaces what UW sees for other residency spots.

Spencer said the new funding was awarded in partnership with Marshfield Clinic Health System with the goal of increasing the number of residency spots as well as the amount of time doctors are spending in rural communities.

He said efforts to increase rural residency placements in other medical specialties have shown that the more time doctors spend training in rural areas, the more likely they are to practice there after graduating.

“We need to have that as a goal, because we are seeing a massive shift specifically in OBGYNs out of rural areas throughout the United States,” he said. “This has been going on for quite some time, but it’s becoming much more pronounced in the last five to 10 years.”

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