Oklahoma Wants What Texas Offers Rural Doctors

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma

Bob Abernathy is one of two doctors in Washita County, Oklahoma.

There’s another complication in Oklahoma’s quest for more rural doctors: competition with Texas.

Through the Physician Manpower Training Commission, the state funds scholarships, stipends and loan aid to incentivize young medical students and residents to work in rural practices.

Usually, the OK vs. Texas rivalry is about state government doing — regulating, taxing — less, but our southern neighbor’s state-funded incentives for rural doctors are more than twice those offered in Oklahoma, KOSU’s Ben Allen reports.

Our neighbors to the south forgive $160,000 if you practice medicine in a rural area. For Oklahoma, you’re looking at only $60,000 in scholarships.

Oklahoma has tried to keep up. A similar loan repayment program was created last year, but it went unfunded. Oklahoma’s physician training commission has now turned to fund the incentives with money from the state’s tobacco settlement fund, Allen reports.

… they’ll pay back the same amount of loans as Texas