KCO - Kansas City ~ Record Setting Year

Wow! What a busy, successful and FUN day! KCO - KC had a record breaking year with 195 participants visiting with 30 health care exhibitors from all across Kansas.

Another KCO event is coming up soon in Wichita. The venue has changed this year and the event will be held at the Wichita Boat House. Mark you calendar for Thursday, November 10. Registrations are still being accepted. Call 888-503-4221, email rhealth@kumc.edu or register online.

Hope to see you there!

Kansas Career Opportunities - KC

The KUMC [Wichita] staff is on its way to Kansas City today to begin setting up for KCO-KC! More than 30 health care facility representatives from rural Kansas will be at tomorrow's fair to meet with medical students, resident physicians, practicing physicians, health care professionals and even spouses! If you have not registered to attend, you can register onsite. We hope to see you there!

Kansas Career Opportunities - KC

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Noon to 2 p.m.

University of Kansas Medical Center

Hixson Atrium

List of Exhibitors for KCO - KC

Anderson County Hospital, Anthony Medical Center, Citizens Medical Center, Coffeyville Regional Medical Center, Dodge City Medical Center, Geary Community Hospital, HaysMed, Herington Municipal Hospital, Health & Human Services/Bureau of Clinician Recruitment and Services/National Health Service Corps, KAMU, Kansas Academy of Family Physicians, Kansas Department of Health & Environment/Primary Care Office, Labette Health, Lindsborg Community Hospital and Rural Health Clinic, Memorial Health System in Abilene, Mercy Hospital Independence, Mercy Hospital Fort Scott, Mitchell County Hospital Health Systems, Ness County Hospital, Newman Regional Health in Emporia, Phillips County Hospital, Pratt Regional Medical Center, Rice County District Hospital, Rural Health Education and Services, Salina Regional Health Center, Sheridan County Health Complex, Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, Via Christi Hospital, Pittsburg, Inc., and Western Plains Medical Complex.

Dentist joins Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas

Arthur Unruh, DDS, joined the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas (CHC/SEK) Iola Dental Clinic in June.

“Being from a small town, I never ruled out the possibility of working in rural Kansas and after looking at several opportunities found Iola to be the best fit,” said Unruh.

Dr. Unruh was raised in Hesston, Kan. He received a Bachelor’s in Science Biochemistry from the University of Kansas in 2007. In May 2011 he completed dental school at The University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Krista Postai, CEO of CHC/SEK believes they were fortunate to find someone who was a perfect match for a busy rural practice that serves people from all walks of life.

“Dr. Unruh clearly understands the importance of access to oral health care and dentistry. For him, it’s clearly more than just making a living—it’s about making a difference,” Postai said.

Dr. Unruh indicated that his favorite part of dentistry is that he gets to meet and interact with new people every day. “There is a very large need to be filled in the population we are serving and it is rewarding to be able to help out those who otherwise are unable to get care,” Dr. Unruh said.

Unruh and the CHC/SEK were matched through the Kansas Recruitment Center (KRC). The KRC, which provides placement assistance to rural health organizations, seeks to enhance the quality and quantity of health care professionals in rural Kansas by helping providers like Unruh find a practice in Kansas. The KRC is a not-for-profit program of Rural Health Education and Services at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Further information is available at ruralhealth.kumc.edu or by phone at 888-503-4221.

KCO - Kansas City is one week away

On Thursday, October  13, Rural Health Education and Services is hosting the Kansas Career Opportunities (KCO) event in Kansas City, Kan. and will take place in Hixson Atrium on the University of Kansas Medical Center Campus on 39th Street, just east of Rainbow Blvd.

KCO is designed to introduce medical students, residents, and other health care professionals to rural communities seeking health care providers. Rural Kansas communities are invited to exhibit at the career fairs and discuss health care career opportunities in their area.

Whether you are a student, resident physician, or a practicing health care professional, you won’t want to miss this unique opportunity to meet representatives from Kansas communities. Lunch is provided and a prize drawing is held for those who attend. Below is a schedule for the day.

It is still not to late to attend, visit Rural Health's website for more information and to register for the event.

If you are not able to attend KCO Kansas City on October 13, you are in luck. KCO Wichita will be held on November 10, at the Wichita Boat House. KCO Wichita will also have an evening event. More information on KCO Wichita can be found on Rural Health's website.

Nearly all U.S. doctors are now on social media

Below is a article that Rural Health found to be interesting and wanted to share it with you.

Although most are active on sites personally -- and many professionally -- they have been reluctant to engage with patients.

By Pamela Lewis Dolan, amednews staff. Posted Sept. 26, 2011.

The number of physicians using sites such as Facebook and Twitter has grown so quickly that Gabriel Bosslet, MD, realized the moment his study on physician social media use appeared in June that it already was out of date.

The data, collected by Dr. Bosslet between February and May 2010 and posted more than a year later on the Journal of General Internal Medicine site, found that 41.6% of doctors use social media sites.

However, between April and May 2011, research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan found that 84% of doctors use social media for personal purposes. Then in August, nearly 90% of physicians reported that they used at least one social media site personally, according to a survey by the online physician learning collaborative QuantiaMD.

By those numbers, physicians are well ahead of the general adult population -- 65% of the general public use social media, according to a study published in August by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

"The rise in social media has been so meteoric," said Dr. Bosslet, an internist at Indiana University Health and an affiliate faculty member at the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics in Indianapolis, which sponsored his research. The time that passed between data collection to his study's results being posted was like a "generation later," he said.

33% of U.S. physicians have received Facebook friend requests from patients; 75% of them declined the invitations. However, although physicians appear to be embracing social media, they are still feeling their way around it. According to QuantiaMD, 87% of physicians make personal use of social media, but a lesser amount, 67%, use it professionally. And one thing that hasn't changed during those 18 months is the lack of patient-physician communication on social media.

One-third of the QuantiaMD survey respondents said they had received a friend request from a patient on Facebook. Three-quarters of the physicians declined those invitations.

"There is a real reticence on the part of many physicians to use social media, or even email for that matter, to communicate with patients," said Nancy Fabozzi, health care market research and competitive intelligence specialist with Frost & Sullivan. Not only are physicians worried about liability and privacy issues, but also "there's not enough hours in the day, quite frankly," she said.

Read the full story on amednews.com

2011 Rural Kansas Photography Contest Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 Rural Kansas Photography Contest, presented by Rural Health Education and Services. All winning photos can be found on the Rural Health website: http://ruralhealth.kumc.edu/photocontest/2011winners.html.

This year we had 75 people submit almost 350 Photos! Below are the 1st place winners for each category.

Rural Landscape

1st Place - Lee Mossman
"Lake Sunset"

Healthcare

1st Place - Marcia Newell
"Checking Ears in the ER, During the Teddy Bear Clinic"

Community

1st Place - Bryan Gilligan
"Firefighters"

Recreation

1st Place - submitted by Roger Tobias, photo by by Jessica Lindsey
"Airplane Caleb, Landing strip bordered by ripened wheat"

Community celebrates expansion of KU Wichita Campus

WICHITA, KAN. – The University of Kansas, along with state, university, and local leaders, will celebrate the expansion of the KU School of Medicine and the KU School of Pharmacy on the Wichita Campus at a dedication ceremony from 4 to 6 p.m., Sept. 15, at 1010 N. Kansas.

The ceremony will highlight the new first-year classes in both schools, as well as recognize those who helped establish and expand the university’s Wichita Campus as KU works to meet the needs of the state.

“There is a serious shortage of doctors and pharmacists in Kansas, particularly in rural areas. Through this expansion of our presence in Wichita, KU will help close those gaps,” said KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, PhD. “We’ve received tremendous support from state and local leaders, and those partnerships will benefit Kansans and build healthy communities around the state."

Ninety of 105 Kansas counties are medically underserved. In addition, six Kansas counties have no pharmacy and another 30 have only one.

“For almost 40 years, we’ve provided hands-on, clinical training for third- and fourth-year medical students in Wichita,” said KU School of Medicine–Wichita Dean H. David Wilson, MD. “KU will now be educating even more doctors for Kansas by expanding the total class size with an expansion here in Wichita, and the medical community couldn’t be happier.”

The School of Medicine–Wichita is collaborating with the School of Pharmacy, Wichita State University, and Newman University to share resources, including a cadaver lab and several faculty members to avoid duplication and increase efficiency. By 2015, the KU Wichita Campus is projected to have an $80 million annual economic impact on the Wichita area.

The first four years of the KU School of Medicine–Wichita expansion are being funded by tuition and philanthropy. The expansion of the School of Pharmacy was made possible thanks to support from the state, which also included the construction of a new building in Lawrence.

“The expansion to Wichita and the new building in Lawrence allowed us to increase the number of incoming pharmacy students from 105 two years ago to 170 this year,” said KU School of Pharmacy Dean Ken Audus, PhD. “We’re confident that investment will pay dividends to the people of Kansas for generations to come.”

“Our Wichita Campus has been extremely successful, serving as a model for other medical schools nationwide. Thanks to our community partners and so many gracious donors, we have been able to build on this success,” said Barbara Atkinson, MD, KU Medical Center executive vice chancellor and KU School of Medicine executive dean. “Our goal of having a full, four-year medical school campus in Wichita is now a reality.”

Construction was completed in May for the 26,047-square-foot, second-floor addition designed by GLMV Architecture and constructed by Walz Harmon Huffman Construction and Hahner Foreman & Harness Inc.