Removing Barriers to Rural Health Care

Jennifer Davis of Rogersville was drawn to Quillen College of Medicine for its emphasis on rural health care. After graduating in May with a dual M.D./MPH degree through Quillen and the College of Public Health, she looks forward to her family medicine residency at Texas A&M to give her even more tools to achieve her goal of being a “one-stop shop” that eliminates some of the barriers to health care in rural communities. Davis first felt called toward a career in rural medicine in her youth. “Looking back, it was a mentor I found in high school through the health science program in Rogersville who exposed me to the depth and breadth of rural medicine.”

Davis grew up in a rural, blue-collar environment. Her mother is a retired elementary school teacher and her father, a truck driver, has been a farmer and factory worker. When she was in the eighth grade, she had to make a life-changing decision and pick a career track for high school. Health science stood out to her.

Soon, Davis attended Quillen’s Rural High School Medical Camp, which is designed for students and recent graduates of high schools in rural or underserved areas interested in becoming primary care physicians. And, she had the opportunity to work with Quillen Rural Primary Care Track (RPCT) students in a free clinic in Rogersville.

In addition, she earned the Tennessee Rural Partnership STAR Award. This scholarship from the Tennessee Center for Health Workforce Development allowed her to shadow with her local family physician, Dr. Mark Dalle-Ave, then a Quillen faculty member, who became her mentor.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Davis was drawn to Quillen because of its commitment to serve the rural communities of Appalachia. She participated in the RPCT, which allows students to take their case-based learning component out of the classroom and into the rural communities of Rogersville or Mountain City, Tennessee. There, they work with community physicians and upperclassmen, precept, and apply classroom knowledge in real-life situations. RPCT students also develop and conduct a community-based research project during their second year, as well as complete both a 12-week primary care rotation and a collaborative community project addressing local health problems during their third year.

“There are a lot of social determinants of health in Appalachia that pull at my heartstrings a little bit,” Davis said. “I was fortunate to get a higher education. Now I have an opportunity to go back and to serve rural communities. And all of those things that I’ve seen – those struggles, those challenges, those hardships – now I have a platform to do something about them.”

Davis said she chose to focus on community health. She aims to combine what she has learned in the classroom with being able to mobilize and connect with resources that can better serve her patients, forming “an extra tool in her toolbelt” to use throughout her career.

“A big thing for me is not having my patients drive 45 minutes for care, but they can come to a family practitioner and get everything they need and have someone who’s going to get out in the community and be there at events, who’s going to advocate for their needs and just be present.”