The Department of Family Medicine in the UTHSC College of Medicine-Chattanooga has received a $750,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to support the establishment of the Family Medicine Residency Rural Track in Bledsoe County.
The Family Medicine Residency Rural Track will be an expansion of the current three-year Family Medicine Residency in Chattanooga, a program that sponsors seven residents each year and provides inpatient care at the Erlanger Baroness Campus. The rural residency track will offer training and extend health care in Bledsoe County in partnership with the Erlanger Bledsoe Primary Care practice in Pikeville, Tennessee.
“COVID shut down a lot of our global health and international mission work and put a spotlight on the desperate need in our immediate areas. It made us look at our neighboring counties and what their primary health care needs were, and it was shocking to see the lack of health care access in some of these areas,” said Leslie Griffin, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of Family Medicine and director of the Family Medicine Residency program in Chattanooga. “A funding opportunity appeared for us to grow our residency program, and we determined that the best way to serve the areas would be to start a rural training track.”
Read more at our UTHSC news site.