Is there a doctor here?

Is there a doctor here? Or a dentist? Students who may one day consider a future as a medical professional enjoyed a day at Scrubs Camp on Thursday at LRSC.
The event’s purpose was to encourage those young minds to realize being a medical professional might be in their future.
Thursday’s students were all fifth graders from around the city. Another Scrubs Camp is planned for Tuesday, June 8 for students from other grade levels from in and around the Lake Region area.
Dr. Joshua Wynne says he’s still getting used to the fact that approximately 48 hours ago he was named to head the prestigious UND Medical School as the dean. While here in Devils Lake Wynne took a break from his Scrubs Camp duties to meet with a small group of local adults concerned about the growing shortage of doctors in rural areas - like Devils Lake and the Lake Region.
Dr. Rich Johnson had contacted Wynne prior to his visit to Devils Lake asking him some questions about ways the city of Devils Lake and other surrounding communities could recruit and retain doctors.
Johnson expressed his concern for Devils Lake and the people of the Lake Region, “We are facing a crisis in the next three years as over half of the doctors that serve this area are 60 years of age or older. They are going to be retiring - then what? Where are their replacements going to come from?” he asked Wynne.
Wynne talked about his plans to expand UND’s Med School and asked for input from Johnson and those he had gathered together for the informal meeting. “Working together, maybe we can come up with some solutions to the shortage of medical professionals in under-served rural areas, like Devils Lake,” he said.
A number of ideas to try to address the coming crisis were discussed.
Dr. Heidi Bittner, who works on a regular basis one-on-one with medical students, suggested that a number of medical school slots be dedicated to those who contract to stay in North Dakota and practice there. For each year they do practice in a rural area, like the Lake Region, a portion of their tuition debt will be reduced.
When a student finishes medical school today their normal debt load is somewhere around $155,000, according to Wynne. Knowing that all or a portion of that debt could be forgiven might be an incentive to young people applying to medical school to agree to stay in North Dakota and serve where they are so badly needed.
Wynne agreed the best thing was to “Grow our own and keep our own” - doctors, that is. Much discussion centered around encouraging and nurturing students from small towns to pursue family practice or to become general practitioners.
Wynne is heading to the legislature this biennium to ask for an increase of $30 million (above the $40 million they now get) for a new building, to expand the medical school’s staff from 37 to 157 and to increase the medical school’s number of students from 55 to 71.
Johnson expressed concern about the number of doctors who graduate from UND who move on to other states rather than staying here to serve North Dakota. He said he’d done some research and found that the University of Minnesota Medical School at Duluth was having a great deal of success with its graduates staying in and serving rural communities in Minnesota, about 60 to 65 percent. He suggested that the new dean of UND’s med school take a look at what Duluth was doing to foster retention within the state and see if there are things UND could change to improve their retention.
“There definitely is room for improvement,” Wynne said.  “We took a look at where our students are coming from and found that although North Dakota’s population is largely rural (not living in the largest  six cities) more than half of the candidates for med school do come from the more urban areas. We can look at changing that,” he said.
Things like this Scrubs Camp can help, also, he explained because it may help youngsters take a look at the medical professions when they are considering a field of study for themselves.
Other suggestions that were discussed at the meeting included mentoring or nurturing hometown students going into medicine, Adopt-a-doc programs and educating school counselors and advisors about the true requirements of med school. Bittner shared a story about her own daughter, now studying to be a doctor, being told by an advisor that if she didn’t have a 4.0 not to even consider being a doctor. 
That’s just not true - there are many other factors that enter in and having a “B” on your transcript isn’t going to stop anyone from becoming a doctor. “That’s a good suggestion,” Wynne said about educating college advisors about med school requirements and standards.
He was enthusiastic about the input from Johnson, Bittner and the others attending the informal meeting, “We can do better,” he said. “And with your help, we will.”
Johnson thanked Wynne for taking part in the discussion and expressed his hopes that working together they could come up with help for rural areas that are underserved and facing serious doctor shortages in the very near future.