AFPRHB

The Alabama Family Practice Rural Health Board was established by an act of the Alabama Legislature in 1990. It was a cooperative effort between the Alabama Academy of Family Physicians, the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, the Alabama Department of Public Health, the state’s two medical schools, and several dedicated legislators.

The creation of this board was one of the measures proposed by the 1989 Rural Health Task Force, which had been established to identify solutions for the financial troubles of rural hospitals and the shortage of healthcare services in rural areas. At that time, eleven rural hospitals across the state had closed their doors. Additionally, the number of obstetricians and family physicians who delivered babies had declined by more than 50 percent. In 1982, there were 400-plus physicians performing deliveries. By 1989, that number had eroded to 175. There were 29 counties without any obstetrical services.

The Act specified that the Board make grants for the recruitment of family physicians in underserved areas, track students in residency programs, fund health fairs for recruitment purposes, fund preceptorship programs, and fund essential studies. In addition, the Board is charged with supporting the development of programs to spark medical students’ interest in rural areas and supporting programs for the continuing medical education of rural physicians.

Since its inception, the Board’s philosophy has been to serve not merely as a recruiting agency but to fund special projects for family medicine residents, medical students with an interest in primary care, and rural high school students who are interested in a career in medicine. The Board functions similarly to a private foundation, hearing grant requests from residency programs, medical schools, and others interested in facilitating medical education. The Board has funded programs as wide-ranging as student clerkships in rural areas for medical students, fellowships in obstetrics and behavioral medicine, the endowment of chairs in family medicine at the state’s medical school, the Physicians’ Alabama Opportunity Fair, a “Doc in a Bus” program in a rural community, the Rural Health and Rural Medical Scholars programs at the University of Alabama, workshops for medical students and residents, and many, many others.