Center for Excellence in Rural Health

Residents Win Quiz Bowl

HAZARD, Ky. (June 10, 2008) − The team of Dr. Key Douthitt, right, a native of Jackson, and Dr. Minni Malhotra, left, who lives in Hazard, recently won the Kentucky Academy of Family Physicians’ third annual Resident Quiz Bowl. They represented the University of Kentucky’s East Kentucky Family Medicine Residency Program in the competition, which included both medical-related and general trivia questions. Douthitt, a first-year resident, and Malhotra, a third-year resident, defeated teams from six other family medicine residency programs in the state. The winners are shown with Dr. Baretta R. Casey, director of the Hazard-based UK Center for Excellence in Rural Health and vice chair of UK’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, which host the residency program. After graduating from medical school, doctors must perform a residency before they can become specialized in a particular field of medicine. In the case of family medicine, the residency lasts three years. The mission of UK’s East Kentucky Family Medicine Residency Program is to prepare family physicians for careers in rural medicine, with a focus on meeting the health care needs of the people of rural Appalachia. More than 80 percent of the program’s graduates now practice in medically underserved areas, primarily in Appalachian counties of Kentucky.