The University of Pikeville-Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM), in partnership with Mineral Community Hospital’s FFMR program, was recently notified that they were awarded funding for their Frontier Family Medicine Residency (FFMR) Program from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Residency Training in Primary Care Program.

The HRSA grant D58HP23226 will award $185,548 in year one and $187,356 in each of years two through five based on the success of the initiative and availability of federal funding. If fully funded through September 2016, the federal and non-federal funding for the grant will total $1,042,972. The funds will be used for planning, development, and implementation of the one of the nation’s first frontier family medicine resident training programs to be hosted at a Critical Access Hospital. The FFMR program is accredited by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA).

“The award of this grant helps give our program a solid footing for success. We will attract some of the finest new medical minds when we are ready to start accepting residents in 2013,” said Mineral Community Hospital CEO-Steve Carty and one of the founders of the FFMR.

The KYCOM has a 10-year track record of success in training and retaining primary care physicians in rural areas, especially the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Virginia. In partnership with the FFMR program and the Appalachian Osteopathic Postgraduate Training Institute Consortium (A-OPTIC), a collaborative of four medical schools and 19 residency programs, KYCOM proposes to use grant funds to significantly accelerate the implementation of FFMR’s innovative program which helps address Montana’s critical need for additional medical providers. Once successful, this program can be replicated elsewhere in the country to help improve rural medicine.
 
“This is an historic collaboration for medical education. The FFMR builds on the success we have had training and retaining primary care physicians in the Appalachian Mountains and extends it nationwide,” said John Rehmeyer of A-OPTIC.

The established objectives for this grant include developing and implementing FFMR and enrolling three residents annually, reducing financial barriers to resident success, identifying and eliminating any encumbering or restrictive regulatory caps that could otherwise stifle the innovation needed to grow frontier training programs, evaluate the effectiveness of the program and disseminate the model.

The specific methodology is based on current AOA resident training and FFMR will produce professional, family physicians capable of providing competent, independent, and professional health care service in rural and frontier communities.

-UPIKE-