New Web site seeks doctors for rural locales
A slick Web site aimed at recruiting doctors to Wisconsin is only two days old but already advertises more than 570 openings. "It's pretty amazing," said George Quinn, a senior vice president with the Wisconsin Hospital Association, which helped launch the site. "This proves that we have a real shortage of physicians in this state."
Wisconsin's two medical schools graduate between 330 and 340 doctors each year, but only 38 percent remain in the state. For years hospitals, clinics and other health care providers have been struggling to come up with innovative ways to lure them back.
Madison has plenty of doctors, but rural Wisconsin and inner-city Milwaukee are constantly short. As of Tuesday, 220 of the openings listed at www.wisconsinphysiciancareers.org were for jobs in communities with populations of 15,000 or less. Often these communities, Quinn said, wrestle with two issues: coming up with enough resources to pay for good medical care and attracting educated professionals to the remote stretches of woods and farm country that surround them.
The Web site takes pains to point out some of the positive aspects of living in these places. A listing seeking a urologist in Minoqua, for example, touts the vacation area's outdoors sports and its "relaxed, safe and secure environment" for families and "small-town friendliness." A posting for a gynecologist in Antigo claims that the community has "exceptional" schools, the "finest" outdoor recreation, and "old-fashioned values of pride, hard work and selflessness." A clinic looking for a family practitioner in Colby praises the town's "unique history -- mostly centering on the processing of Colby cheese." And Elkhorn boasts that "in winter, the holiday decorations present a bright, festive setting."
Listings cover 60 different specialists. Mirroring a national trend, primary care physicians who practice pediatrics and family care are the most sought after. Currently there are 136 listings for primary care physicians. Information on what these particular jobs pay was not available on the Web site. However, nationally primary care doctors can expect to earn between $190,000 and $210,000 to start, Quinn said. Salaries can jump to close to $600,000 for neurosurgeons -- as of Tuesday there were five of these jobs listed. And orthopedic surgeons, sought by dozens of clinics and hospitals on the Web site, can earn up to $450,000.
The new Web site is supported by the Wisconsin Council for Medical Education and Workforce. WCMEW is a consortium of six state health care organizations that have been tackling the doctor shortage in Wisconsin for years, including the Wisconsin Hospital Association, the Wisconsin Medical Society, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative and the Wisconsin Academy of Physician Assistants.
