The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy awarded the grant to a consortium led by UNC School of Medicine’s Cristy Page, MD, MPH, and Erin Fraher, PhD, to lead rural training programs for residents.
A team led by Cristy Page, MD, MPH, Executive Dean of the UNC School of Medicine, and Erin Fraher, PhD, associate professor in the UNC Departments of Family Medicine Surgery, has been awarded $1.2 million in additional funding by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. The team was initially awarded $2.4 million in 2018 to support the development of a national technical assistance center that will engage with HRSA Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) Program awardees to help develop new, accredited residency programs in family medicine, general internal medicine, and psychiatry in rural communities in the United States.
Page is also the William B. Aycock Distinguished Professor of Family Medicine. And Fraher is the Director of the Carolina Health Workforce Research Center at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC Chapel Hill. Their team provides overall leadership of RuralGME.org and hosts the Eastern Regional Hub, led by Steve Crane, MD.
This latest funding from HRSA brings the UNC Rural graduate medical education team’s total award to $3.6 million, and will help 38 rural communities across the United States begin rural residency training programs in family medicine, psychiatry, general internal medicine, and general surgery.