mycrofft
Still crazy but elsewhere
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/02/145860801/how-one-hospital-entices-doctors-to-work-in-rural-america
(NPR AUDIO LINK NEAR TOP)
Ashland, Kansas, is a very small rural community which needs medical care to survive. (Presumably medical care there would also support the sparse rural/agricultural population not living in the town limits).
Personally, I see this as important. It is working against the trend we have seen since the late Seventies. While their clinic or a small hospital would not be the place to drop off a major burn case or such, they can be the refuge you drive to for the broken arms, uncomplicated childbirths, or where an X-ray and observation can spell the difference between going home with Tylenol, or being hustled off to Kansas City for a neuro surgery. Also, prevention can be enhanced through screenings, community immunizations, and being a hub where a lab or even FedEx would send couriers to pick up specimens instead of driving a hundred miles or whatever just for routine labs.
Such places can be a center for health by being a medical control, training center, disaster ops center...just a mainstay to keep their town from "blowing away".
Thoughts about reinventing small rural medical facilities?