A Pathway to Provide More Doctors on the Eastern Shore
As the state’s only public medical school, the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) is dedicated to teaching our state’s future health care providers. While a significant number of medical students ultimately practice in Maryland, there is a need to guarantee a consistent and sustainable number who see their future as Eastern Shore physicians.
The shortage of primary care and specialist providers causes long waiting times for appointments and overuses already stretched emergency medical services, resulting in decreased access to care for medical emergencies. These factors combined with a lack of training in primary care for emergency medicine physicians (who are not longitudinal providers) leaves the Eastern Shore with a “primary care” model that is extremely suboptimal for all patients and unsustainable long term. UMSOM piloted, and in 2024 launched, the Rural MD Scholars Program (RMD) in collaboration with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, which is located in Princess Anne in Somerset County. When RMD is fully funded, we will be able to expand the pre-matriculation rural curriculum, ramp up clinical opportunities for third- and fourth-year students, and provide 10 full-tuition scholarships to inspire the best and brightest students to join the program. When RMD graduates complete their residency, they will move directly to practicing medicine on the Eastern Shore. Imagine this: a constant flow of up to 10 new physicians entering the Eastern Shore’s medically underserved areas each year.
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