U.P. Hospitals Recruit Doctors
In both the U.P. regionally and Michigan as a whole, jobs are as tough to find right now as most of us can ever remember.
Still, there’s one major area experiencing job growth in spite of the tough times everywhere else.
It’s the health care industry, and the Upper Peninsula is no exception.
Most of the U.P.’s hospitals were on hand at Marquette General for a recruiting fair to attract new doctors.
The U.P. Health Education Corporation put it on to hold the line on the U.P. and all of Michigan losing physicians.
Maura Davenport is in the 3rd of her 4 years of medical school.
She says although she’s lived across much of the country, she loves being in the U.P. and wants to practice here.
The UPHEC’s CEO, Dr. David Luoma, says the goal is to keep U.P. med students in the U.P. for their residency and then their practice after that whenever possible.
He says the program’s been able to do that with about 30% of its med school graduates so far, and about 50% of its family care doctors.
Because Americans are, on average, getting older, the group is working on offering new training.
It’s a fellowship program for after they’re done with medical school.
MGH family practitioner Dr. William Short also directs the health system’s residency program.
He says it’s an extra year giving the new residents extra training in geriatric medicine to help respond better to the aging population.
And, as another byproduct of that, he says there should be even more demand for family practitioners in the coming years.
That’s another need the UPHEC program is trying to address.