Center for Rural Health brings grants, studies to community

The largest of the new grants is a $1 million grant given to the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Family Medicine working in conjunction with the center to set medical students up in rural family medicine rotations in Bradford.

The five-year grant came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, which promotes better access to healthcare for patients who are isolated. The grant began last year and will continue through 2015.

Alan Rosenbaum was the first student to go through a four-week family medicine rotation in a rural setting with Dr. Jill Owens in June.

Rosenbaum is in his third year of medical school, which consists entirely of short clerkship/internship experiences lasting four to eight weeks.

He grew up in West Lafayette, Ind., where “my bedroom faced cornfields,” he said, and his father practiced in a rural hospital, so he was somewhat familiar with rural medicine. Experiencing rural medicine in his new role gave him insight.

“I always said I was going to grow up and live in the big city,” he said. But, having done that now, in Pittsburgh, he seemed receptive to the advantages of small-town life and medicine.

For one, he loves the outdoors, and spent weekends camping and hiking.

Professionally, he found a large difference in rural medicine was the doctors’ relationship with the hospital.

“It’s a totally different experience being here than in the big city hospital,” he said, explaining that because the number of physicians serving a hospital is so much smaller, each has a real voice in the medical community.

“You have a high likelihood of getting heard,” he said.

He noted that Owens knows each specialist personally and can play to their strengths when she refers patients to them.

Rosenbaum was also impressed by the continuity of care provided by rural health care. Because fewer doctors see each patient, they are more likely to know a lot about the patient’s history.

Rosenbaum worked in Owens’ practice and accompanied her on rounds in the Critical Care Unit at Bradford Regional Medical Center.

“She knows her patients really well,” he said.

This glimpse into rural practice is exactly what the doctors at Pitt Medical School wanted to give their students in hopes that it would whet their appetite to return to a rural practice after graduating.

“Alan Rosenbaum has a rural background and experience typical of future physicians likely to set up practices in rural areas,” said Dr. Youmasu J. Siewe, center director. “To effectively address the chronic shortages of health care providers in rural areas, we need to target even medical students and residents with non-rural backgrounds for rural medicine.”

Students will also be able to benefit from Siewe’s extensive knowledge of rural health issues. Siewe has been appointed an adjunct faculty in the department of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, allowing him to teach a class in public and rural health issues to Pitt’s Family Medicine clerkship curriculum.

“This teaching involvement gives me the opportunity to expose more students to the beauty, opportunities and challenges of rural and holistic health, thus increase their likelihood to set-up practices in rural areas after completing their residency experiences,” he said.

A second student is expected for a rotation in September. The program is being coordinated by Lisa Chapman, who has 34 years of experience in nursing.

A second grant is helping the center train public health employees in nine counties. The $175,000 grant is being paid over five years to train the public health workforce in McKean, Warren, Potter, Forest, Elk, Cameron, Clarion, Jefferson and Clearfield counties.

Coordinator Sharie Wallace has already offered two workshops for health workers, which include school nurses, county health department staff and state health improvement partners on topics of public health and safety.

The first course was for educators and health professionals working with autistic children. Participants had the chance to earn continuing education credits, and training was provided by the Pennsylvania Public Health Training Center, a partnership that includes the center, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and Drexel University.

A second course provided training on writing grants for health initiatives.

Two smaller grants are working to improve the health of communities in McKean and Potter counties.

WalkWorks, launched in May, promotes walking in Bradford, Kane, Smethport and Port Allegany by designating flat, accessible walking paths and encouraging walking as individuals or in groups through an organized walking competition.

A second program, Get Active, provided a mini grant to purchase bicycles, helmets, snowshoes and poles for free use by community members, who can check them out from the Bradford Family YMCA, Costa’s Ace Hardware Store in Smethport and the Charles Cole Wellness Center in Coudersport.

The new grants are in addition to a $3.2 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcoholism awarded in late 2009 to the Northwest Pennsylvania Adolescent Alcohol Research Cooperative, of which the center is a partner.

The center is receiving about one third of that grant to conduct field tests of an intervention method to reduce alcohol use among rural adolescents.

For more information on any of the Center’s current programs, contact Siewe at (814)362-5045 or yjs3@pitt.edu.