The Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program is offering 15 $30,000 per year scholarships to the University of Mississippi Medical Center for 15 students each year.
The scholarship program is targeted toward sophomores and juniors from towns of less than 20,000 residents. After finishing their medical training, the scholars are required to immediately start practicing medicine in small towns in Mississippi.
Janie Guice, executive director of the MRPSP, said the newly trained doctors will be able to practice almost anywhere in Mississippi.
“We only require that the town has 20,000 or fewer citizens,” she said. “Currently there are only 22 cities in Mississippi bigger than 20,000, so virtually they can go anywhere.”
She said the program will offer training for the Medical College Admission Test to the 15 undergraduate students selected.
“We’ll also offer MCAT prep during the junior year, which Kaplan charges $1,800 for their online version,” Guice said. “If a student actively participates in the program, does reasonably well on the MCAT and has good grades, then they’ll be afforded direct entry into medical school.”
Mary Reese, director of undergraduate advising for the department of biological sciences, said the program will have a large impact on the students.
“This is a great opportunity to have their education funded,” she said. “[They] will also achieve to the best of their abilities with the tutoring programs they also have.”
Guice said while at medical school, the students in the program will be offered special training on Saturdays for the Step Prep tests taken at the end of the sophomore and senior years
“If you don’t pass [Step 1 Prep], they throw you out of medical school forever. You only get a few chances at the test,” she said. ” If you don’t pass [Step 2], you can’t be licensed to practice in the state.”
She said the program will keep the students focused on rural health.
“We require students to study one of five areas: family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, general internal medicine or medicine-pediatrics,” Guice said. “Those physicians are the ones you go to first before you’re referred to a surgeon or a specialist.”
Reese said the program will be good for Mississippi State University students because so many of them come from rural backgrounds.
“These are some bright kids that just maybe didn’t have the necessary background that they would need to succeed in a degree program like biological sciences,” she said. “Any help these brilliant minds can get to nurture them through a degree program will be fabulous not only for MSU students, but for the state as a whole.”
Guice said adding a physician to a small town has an economic impact of $1.2 million per year.
“Rural hospitals are often the main employer for the entire area,” Guice said. “It is a 24/7 business running a hospital, and those employees have benefits, but you have to have the physicians there.”
Guice said the program will be paid for by state taxes, but there will not be any tax increases.
“We’re a line-item appropriation by the legislature each year,” she said. “Because this legislation almost unanimously passed the first time it was voted on, it was all but unanimous in both chambers. We’re very optimistic that funding will be there.”
Senior microbiology major Gary Jefcoats said the program will be helpful for MSU students.
“Since our students come from rural areas, and seeing as how we’re mostly the country kids, it would help our students more in that regard,” he said. “The full ride to med school would help any kind of student.”
For more information on the scholarship program, visit mrpsp.umc.edu.