🌎 Resumen en español · traducción automática
Kentucky enfrenta una escasez significativa de médicos, especialmente en el este del estado, con proyecciones que indican la necesidad de hasta 2,900 doctores adicionales para 2030. El Programa de Carreras en Salud de Kentucky, dirigido por James Ballard en la Universidad de Kentucky, trabaja a través de ocho centros regionales para atraer profesionales de la salud a comunidades rurales y desatendidas, enfocándose en reclutar estudiantes de áreas rurales que tengan mayor probabilidad de practicar en esas regiones. La Universidad de Kentucky está expandiendo su capacidad educativa con la construcción de un nuevo edificio de 550,000 pies cuadrados para la Facultad de Medicina y también promueve conciencia sobre diversas carreras en el sector salud más allá de médicos y enfermeras.
Traducción y resumen generados por IA a partir del artículo en inglés. Puede contener errores; consulte el texto original.
As the director of the Center for Interprofessional and Community Health Education at the University of Kentucky, James Ballard knows firsthand about the physician shortage in the state and the all-encompassing efforts to change it.
“Oh, we have tremendous needs in Kentucky in general, but especially in Eastern Kentucky,” he said.
Ballard runs the Kentucky Health Careers Pathways Program, part of the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program, a national workforce development initiative that recruits, trains and supports health professionals in underserved and rural communities. A statewide AHEC collaboration between UK and the University of Louisville offers eight regional centers to cover all 120 counties.
“When you look at the numbers, they’re all over the place,” Ballard said, noting that he has read statistics that say by 2030, “we’ll need up to 2,900 additional doctors, and many are at retirement age, so we’re losing quite a few.”
Ballard knows that to get someone to practice in a rural area, you’re more likely to succeed if that physician is from a rural area or at least has some clinical training within one.
“I happen to be more affiliated with the eastern centers, and we have three within the Appalachian region,” he said.
Ballard said some of the program’s goals are “agnostic,” like helping students from middle school and up understand that the career options available to them in healthcare aren’t just limited to being a doctor or nurse. “With that being said, we have some very focused programming, too, that goes into those studies for the ones who want to be doctors or nurses, but we like to educate them on all the other careers, too.”
At the university level, Ballard said they’re aiming to increase class sizes.
“The problem we’ve had at UK is not unique – it’s physical space,” he said. “There are certain requirements for space in order to be accredited as a medical school,” and the university is fortunate to be in the midst of creating that space.
Within a year, a new 550,000-square-foot building is expected to be finished to house the College of Medicine, with additional space for the College of Nursing and other health sciences, as well as public health. Ballard said this will allow an annual increase in enrollment for medical, nursing and health sciences students.
The effort to increase the healthcare workforce doesn’t stop at UK, Ballard noted. The Kentucky Hospital Association, a nonprofit group representing the industry, has its own programs to interest students in healthcare careers. And state lawmakers are listening to the call.
“I know the legislature has authorized Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) to create a medical school . . . ,” Ballard said. “It’s needed – we have to turn out more folks.”
The passage of House Bill 900 means $50 million will be funded to create a new college of osteopathic medicine at EKU, which will primarily focus on training physicians to practice in rural, underserved communities. The long process of the college becoming accredited is in its early stages, and estimates are that if all goes well, the first class could graduate in 2031-2032.
The Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine was established at the University of Pikeville in 1997, the result of a project to address physician shortages in the region. The school has recently been recognized among the best in the nation in rankings by U.S. News & World Report. UPIKE also offers a range of courses to prepare students for other healthcare-related occupations.
UK and U of L also have medical placement offices working on the same goal. Those offices were created in a move the legislature made back in 1990, mandating that universities maintain physician recruitment and placement services.
“Their mission is to get people to practice in Kentucky, specifically rural areas but not exclusively, ” Ballard said.
That said, the attempts to attract more doctors to rural areas aren’t solely relying on recruiting from just the medical sector. “Just today, I met with the Lighthouse Beacon Foundation, which is focused on engineering and working with STEM teachers in rural counties,” Ballard said recently.
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and is an educational approach that integrates these four fields of learning. Ballard said there’s a real pipeline between engineering and medicine.
“There’s no study I’m aware of, but in my experience the physicians I’ve known who started off as engineers are fabulous doctors,” he said. “There’s something about the engineering curriculum – the way of thinking or problem-solving, it just fits well.”
National Institutes of Health confirms this thinking, with academic research suggesting that engineers make excellent doctors, especially as the medical field is becoming more data-driven and technology-reliant.
“We’re trying to step out of our healthcare box and look at other things, like engineering, to help identify getting more students – if they want to,” Ballard said. “We’re not trying to steal them, but some want to go into healthcare. And they have to get an undergraduate degree, and engineering seems to work well.”
There are multiple ongoing efforts, Ballard explained, in the attempt to get more doctors into these rural areas, “but we need to do more. We have eight counties in the state that have no physicians whatsoever.”
Although the value of advanced practice nurses cannot be discounted, Ballard said many things require a physician, “so you really need the team.”
A federal, bipartisan bill was introduced in February 2025 – the Doctors in Our Borders Act. If passed, it will affect the J-1 Visa Waiver Program, which allows foreign medical graduates doing their residency in the states to bypass a federal requirement to return to their home country for two years. The legislation seeks to add up to 3,500 doctors nationwide every year, meaning an increase of 70 slots per state allowed through the program, an increase from 30 slots.
Ballard wasn’t familiar with the proposed legislation, but offered his thoughts: “This is my opinion, not UK’s – the last thing in my opinion I would want to see is if we filled all these spaces with folks from out of state. They’re less likely to practice in Kentucky, which makes the Pathways Program even more necessary. We have to get out and see and work with more students to get them prepped to go into these programs.”
Bobbie Curd is a freelance journalist based in Danville, Kentucky. Her stories appear in a variety of area publications, and her experience includes reporting and editing duties at both daily and weekly newspapers. This story is part of a package about health care issues in Eastern Kentucky produced with a grant from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
