Third-year University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNE COM) student Justine Monthony (D.O., ’21) recently completed a four-week rural rotation at Mount Desert Island (MDI) Hospital in Bar Harbor.
Monthony completed her Rural Community Health Clerkship as part of her 160-hour curriculum as a Care for the Underserved Pathway (CUP) Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Scholar.
The CUP AHEC Scholars Distinction provides opportunities for UNE health professions students to get out into rural Maine and work with underserved populations. The program is part of the Maine AHEC Network, a workforce development program aimed at alleviating health care workforce shortages.
This was Monthony’s second time stationed in Maine’s DownEast region. In 2018 — her first year as a CUP AHEC Scholar — she participated in the DownEast Rural Health Immersion, where she was first exposed to the health care needs of rural Maine. Her early and repeated exposure to the Downeast region is part of the Maine AHEC’s new five-year initiative, through the CUP AHEC Scholars program, to lessen health care workforce shortages in rural Maine.
Attracting health care professionals to rural and underserved communities has been a national priority for several years and a particular issue for Maine which, according to the 2010 Census data, was the most rural state in the United States.
Rural geography can lead to long commutes for patients seeking basic health care services and can worsen existing provider shortages, leading to poor health outcomes.
Washington County is an example of that. One of the most rural counties in Maine, the county has been ranked last of the state’s 16 counties for health outcomes by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings. These health disparities
TO ADDRESS HEALTH CARE WORKFORCE SHORTAGES, MAINE AHEC SCHOLARS ARE EXPOSED TO RURAL MAINE EARLY & OFTEN
By Ian Imbert, MPH
Third-year COM student, Justine Monthony, during her rotation at Mount Desert Island (MDI) Hospital in Bar Harbor, ME