Center for Excellence in Rural Health

East Kentucky Family Medicine Residency Program

The residency program is a community-based, university-administered program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and American Osteopathic Association and approved for four residents in each postgraduate year.

Dual accreditation of training allows the residency to attract graduates of all three Kentucky medical schools and continue its record of success in placing graduates in rural areas. Applicants with an interest in rural practice and with ties to rural Kentucky are strongly considered for admission to the residency. The result is that the majority of graduates have chosen rural practice, mainly in Kentucky.

Committed to improving health of rural people, the faculty has implemented a well-functioning curriculum that addresses the intricacies of rural medicine. The curriculum not only provides the residents with excellent training in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, but also emphasizes community-oriented primary care, which is vital to rural medicine.

The faculty is made up of board-certified family physicians, as well as full-time licensed clinical psychologists. This integrated team offers traditional psychological services in addition to health and behavioral assessment and intervention to aid in the management of chronic and acute physical illness. This team approach ensures a collaborative provider partnership that centers around total care of the patient by physicians trained in recognizing both the psychological and health care needs of their patients.

The UK North Fork Valley Community Health Center, the residency’s model clinic, emphasizes quality of care in an environment that provides multi-disciplinary education to residents, medical students, nurse practitioner students and other health care professionals. Community health centers are required to deliver preventive and primary care services to patients regardless of their ability to pay.

The Eastern Kentucky Veteran’s Center (EKVC) is a 120-bed long-term care facility that opened in March 2002. The residency program is responsible for the medical direction of EKVC and residents follow their own patients as part of the geriatric curriculum.

The residency’s primary hospital facility, the Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center, includes a 208-bed medical and surgical hospital, a 100-bed psychiatric hospital, and a large outpatient facility. A variety of sophisticated diagnostic and treatment services are available at the medical center. The hospital serves patients from Southeastern Kentucky, a service area that includes more than 150,000 residents. The active and consulting physicians represent a wide range of medical specialties. Most of the physicians on the active medical staff are appointed to voluntary faculty status with UK and are involved in the education of the family medicine residents.

The presence of the residency in the UK Center for Excellence in Rural Health offers an opportunity for health disciplinary education with a variety of health professionals and collaboration with community programs.

The residency also works closely with the Southeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center. AHECs provide rural health education opportunities for health professions education programs at University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and the Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine. The Southeast Kentucky AHEC has a fully functional medical library, located at Hazard ARH, available for medical professionals with assistance provided for students and residents.

For more information, please contact:

Ray G. Hays, M.D.
Director, EKFMRP
750 Morton Boulevard
Hazard, KY 41701
(606) 439-3557 or 800-851-7512 ext. 83565
Fax: (606) 439-1131
E-mail: hrnobl0@email.uky.edu