On a warm November evening, Easton’s historic Avalon Theatre was host to more than 150 Eastern Shore residents who, along with another 250 watching via livestream, were eager to learn about and help shape a new vision for community health care. As master of ceremonies, University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, seemed right at home. And why not? Jarrell hails from the tiny town of Goldsboro, just 25 miles away in neighboring Caroline County, and has a deep understanding of the Eastern Shore community.
“I left Maryland for some time in my [medical] training, and when I came back in 1997, my mom was sitting there waiting for me,” he recalled. “‘Bruce. What are you going to do about health care and on the Eastern Shore? Since my friends can’t get access, they can’t get what they consider to be the best care, they have to go across that …’ She didn't say it this way, but it was ‘darn bridge.’ That’s not quite what she said. ‘You have to go across the bridge and you’ve got to fix this.’ ”
(clockwise from upper left) Mark Reynolds and Megan Ehret; Bruce Jarrell with Yolanda Ogbolu and Mark Gladwin; Lawrence Hayman and Kenneth Kozel; and the audience
The audience laughed but understood the seriousness of the situation all too well. The vast majority of the Shore’s 450,000 residents live in what the federal government designates as Medically Underserved Areas. For example, in Jarrell’s home county, Caroline, there is just one health provider for every 2,500 residents, compared with one for every 1,000 residents in suburban Baltimore County on the Western Shore.
Not only that, but Eastern Shore residents also are at greater risk of serious health issues, like heart attacks and kidney disease, and have higher infant mortality rates and shorter life expectancy than residents of the rest of Maryland.
“What would I say back to my mom today?” Jarrell asked the audience. “First of all, it takes a good medical facility. It takes a community of physicians and nurses and nurse practitioners and pharmacists and dentists. It takes a community who wants to see change, a community who realizes that there’s a problem and realizing that the solution is not going to be simple.”
The first item on Jarrell’s list, a first-rate, modern medical facility, is already on the way, explained Kenneth Kozel, MBA, president of University of Maryland Shore Regional Health. The University of Maryland Medical System broke ground in 2024 on the new University of Maryland Eastern Shore Regional Medical Center, which will begin seeing patients in 2028. The more than 325,000-square-foot facility and adjacent 60,000-square-foot Outpatient Services Building also include specialty services, such as a cardiac intervention center, a birthing center, and an acute inpatient rehabilitation center, as well as emergency and critical care services.
“What’s going on in rural health care across the rest of the country is incredibly challenging,” Kozel told the audience. “Hospitals are closing, hundreds over the last two decades. Hospitals are cutting back on services in rural health care areas, and we said that’s not going to happen on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. We’re going to create an integrated delivery system. We’re going to build you a regional medical center. It’s going to be a state-of-the-art facility that we can all be proud of.”
But building a new facility is only the start, Kozel added. “The first question people ask me about is, well, what are you going to do about workforce? It’s great that we’re going to have a great hospital, but what’s the workforce going to be like?”
Accompanying Jarrell on stage were the deans of UMB’s two largest schools, the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), both of whom were ready to talk about the progress and promise of the Eastern Shore Rural Health Scholars Program. Representatives from two other schools were on hand to give a brief look ahead to their future plans within the program — Mark A. Reynolds, DDS, PhD, MA, dean of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, and Megan Ehret, PharmD, a professor from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. An important goal of the program is increasing the ranks of health care providers on the Shore by leveraging UMB’s institutional strength, providing educational opportunities and support in exchange for commitments to serve the community after graduation.
“We’ve created a special [medical school] track that we’re calling Rural-MD, for Medical Doctor in Maryland. And in that track, we have 10 students per year,” explained Mark T. Gladwin, MD, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of UMSOM and vice president for medical affairs at UMB. “Our goal is to have full scholarships, and that scholarship requires loan repayment for service on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. So, every year of scholarship is a year of loan repayment. And that could be working at TidalHealth [in Salisbury], that could be working at Shore Health, that could be working for our partners in Choptank [Choptank Community Health System],” he continued, adding that graduates may also work for independent physicians, many of whom want to recruit partners, possibly with a succession plan in mind.
“Our School of Nursing currently has 2,011 students in the program, 500 at [the Universities at] Shady Grove. We hope to start with 20 to 30 students here on the Eastern Shore, and then grow,” added Yolanda Ogbolu, PhD, NNP, FNAP, FAAN, the Bill and Joanne Conway Dean of UMSON. “And we also want to reach out to the high school students. I understand some might be up there [in the theater’s gallery], and if you are, I want you to know you can be a nurse. We know that people are here. They’re bright, they’re talented, and they’re able to become a nurse.”
Ogbolu also received applause for her answer to a question on the minds of many audience members. Just as with physicians, getting nursing students to return to the Shore to practice has proved to be a challenge. “What we’ve seen is sometimes students do come to our Baltimore campus and they don’t return to the Shore. So, how can we increase the likelihood that we're meeting our vision and our goal, which is to really increase the health care workforce on the Shore? We think the best way is to have the program here on this Shore.”
Another round of applause showed appreciation for the foundational support given by businessman Lawrence Hayman. A childhood friend of Jarrell, Hayman now owns and operates Federalsburg-based shipping company H&M Bay. Jarrell thanked him for his $6 million bequest to help establish the Eastern Shore Rural Health Scholars Program, part of an $18 million bequest for the larger Eastern Shore Initiative.
The audience also was quick to show interest in and support of the program with their comments and questions. Del. Thomas Hutchinson, whose district includes Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, and Wicomico counties, offered legislative support to help overcome any roadblocks. “Bring those issues forward when you see them, because legislatively, I’d be happy to tackle that and get that done to make sure that we’re bringing the best here,” he said. “When you come to the Shore, you know what happens, you’ll love it here, and you don’t leave and you want to stay here and practice.”
To watch the entire program, including more program details and questions and answers from the audience, click the link at the top of the page.
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