When Gina Sparacino finishes her doctor training, shell follow her dream to work as an orthopedic surgeon in Buffalo. <\/p>\n
Im excited. Im so gung-ho Buffalo. I bleed Buffalo, the Town of Tonawanda native said. <\/p>\n
But when it comes to recruiting doctors, Buffalo can be a tough sell, so much so that the community faces a shortage of primary care doctors, as well as gastroenterologists and psychiatrists, among other specialists. <\/p>\n
So a group of doctors here created a scholarship program to encourage University at Buffalo medical school students like Sparacino to stay put. <\/p>\n
The Western New York Medical Scholarship Fund recently awarded Sparacino and two other medical students at least $30,000 a year for four years at UBs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. <\/p>\n
For Sparacino, the scholarship will save her from tens of thousands of dollars of debt. <\/p>\n
For the local medical community, each scholarship means one more doctor working in Western New York. A condition of the scholarship requires recipients to practice medicine in the region for at least five years after they complete their studies and hands-on training in a specialty. <\/p>\n
The scholarship program represents the communitys attempt to grow its own doctors. It also underscores a problem with the number of physicians here and across the country. <\/p>\n
When compared with 305 other regions in the United States, the Buffalo area lands near the bottom for the number of family practice physicians. <\/p>\n
The region had 22 family practice physicians for every 100,000 residents in 2011, according to data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which compares health statistics among regions. Only 40 other regions had a lower rate; Syracuses rate of 30 met the national average. <\/p>\n
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Medical community looks local to stem doctor shortage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Gina Sparacino finishes her doctor training, shell follow her dream to work as an orthopedic surgeon in Buffalo. Continue reading