KarunaNews Story

As rural areas across the country face worsening provider shortages and reductions in health care services, one community hospital in Billings, Montana, is celebrating the success of two new residency programs training the next generation of rural physicians. Roughly 65% of rural counties face a shortage of primary care physicians, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In some states, like Montana, the crisis is particularly acute. Research shows that a rural background is one of the strongest predictors of becoming a rural physician, yet the number of medical students from those communities has declined steadily over the past fifteen years. Today, fewer than 5% of U.S. medical students come from rural areas, contributing to a widening gap in access to basic health services. But Billings Clinic has a different story to tell. Since launching its internal medicine residency program in 2014, Billings Clinic has graduated 75 physicians, with half now practicing in rural communities. The program’s outcomes stand out amid national trends, where only 11% of physicians work in rural areas. That success sparked more growth. In 2023, Billings Clinic launched Montana’s first-ever psychiatry residency, welcoming its first cohort in 2024. In a sea of stories about geographic disparities in medicine, Billings Clinic is forging a path to train and retain rural providers.