NSU's medical school to educate medical residents in rural and underserved communities

Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) medical school announced it recently received a 5-year, $1 million federal grant to educate medical residents to provide expert care for patients living in rural and underserved communities.

The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant will be used to develop training programs for NSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine's affiliated medical residency program at Larkin Community Hospital in Miami.

Lasting between three to seven years, medical residencies are required training for medical school graduates to become board-certified physicians. In affiliation with NSU's medical school, Larkin has18 residents in family medicine.

The HRSA grant will create curriculum and clinical training in medically underserved communities, which include rural and urban areas where physicians and medical services are scarce. The money will also be used to develop training in other areas such as all hazards preparedness, genomics, and medical informatics.

One of the grant's goals is to encourage more primary care residents to become practicing physicians in these underserved areas. Research has shown that medical schools who receive this grant have produced more doctors who end up practicing in such areas.

"There is no reason why residents living in medically underserved communities should receive a lower quality of care then everyone else," said Joseph De Gaetano, D.O., M.S.Ed., associate dean for clinical curriculum and graduate medical education at NSU's medical school. "The HRSA grant will help us deliver care to those who need it the most."