An Assessment of Primary Care Physician Shortages in Mississippi

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there are Health Professional Shortage Areas in all states and territories of the United States.\u27 Since fewer students graduating from medical school are choosing primary care, it is imperative that future graduates in the field know which regions are in greatest need of primary care physicians. In a joint effort with the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, this thesis used data obtained from the Mississippi Department of Health, the United States Census Bureau, the Mississippi State Medical Association, and the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure to research primary care physician shortages per specialty in each of the 82 Mississippi counties and to calculate each county’s relative need for primary care physicians. For the purposes of this thesis, the primary care specialties considered were family/general practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics. Both the primary care physician to population rates and average and median physician ages per county and for each specialty were used to calculate indices of care that compare each county’s relative need for primary care physicians. Results showed that for overall primary care physicians and for those in family practice, relatively more counties had lower scores on their indices of care, while for those in obstetrics and gynecology, over half of the counties received the worst score, indicating that there were no physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology in the county. These results are primarily intended to serve as a tool by which the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program may direct its graduates to areas in need of their services