Shortage of doctors haunts rural Kansas communities
(Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories examining the rural doctor shortage in Kangas.)
Rv.JAIN PENNER
By SHEN FANNER
Kansan Staff Reporter
In many respects Stersh, Kan, is a typical small Midwestern town. Located in a rural area, it has one main street, lined with small shops, restaurants, churches and a tavern or two. Sterling faces a number of rural communities are being faced with an acute shortage of doctors.
STERLING HASN'T always had inadable health care. At the turn of the century, Dr. P. P. Truethair arrived in Kansas in a covered wagon and went on to work at St. Luke's Health care facilities in the area for several decades.
Today the Trueheal Clinic still stands at the end of the main street but it is almost empty, according to a recent survey.
At one time, she said recently, there were four physicians to serve the 2,000 residents of Sterling and the neighboring communities of Nickerson and Alden.
THREE YEARS AGO three of the doctors retired.
leaving only one 60-year-old physician on the staff,
Truhet air. said.
"I's impossible to fill the vacancies," she said. "According to Treuheart, she and the Sterling Chamber of Commerce had been desperately trying to recruit medical school graduates from the University of Kansas Medical Center and the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita but hadn't any luck."
"They go someplace where they want to spend the rest of their lives," she said. "It's difficult to get a practice established. It takes a while for people to get to know a new doctor."
No young physicians are willing to locate in small, rural towns, she said.
TRUEHEART SAID the clinic offered many professional advantages. The facilities, including three empty doctors' offices, 10 examining rooms, a nursing staff and an excellent laboratory, are attractive bait for young, unestablished physicians, she said.
The lack of social advantages, rather than professional ones, keeps doctors from coming to Chicago.
THE RESIDENTS OF STERLING were worried when they first lost the other doctors, Truehart said. Partial help came from a hospital in Wichita and two interns up each week end to help at the clinic.
eventually retire and enjoy life at the country club." she said.
If there is an emergency and the doctor in Sterling is unavailable, Trueheart said, the nearest doctor is 10 miles away in Lyons. It is slightly farther for residents of Nickerson and Aiden.
Ambulance service also comes from Lyons, according to Trueheart.
Trueheart said that she was discouraged and that she was fighting a battle in trying to obtain a prize.
HOWEVER, NOT ALL SMALL TOWNS have lost the battle to get a new doctor. The residents of Cimarron were determined to get another doctor when the only one there retired after 40 years of practice. They were so determined, in fact, that they were even willing to take on the U.S. Army.
When Cimarron had no doctor, residents had to go to Dodge City, 20 miles away, or Garden City, 35 miles away.
The Cimarron Chamber of Commerce began to recruit at medical schools. When it had no success, a committee of citizens was formed to think of ways to attract a doctor to the community. Davis said.
Davis, a citizen of Cimarron who was active in the campaign to find a new physician.
THE COMMITTEE was almost ready to give up in desperation and to set up a fund to send someone through medical school, when Wayne Brown, a team member at Davies, agreed, to put up practice there, Davis said.
Cimarron's problem was far from solved, however. Brown was inducted into the Army and sent to Germany. Davis said the citizens of Cimarron signed a petition and sent it to the Army, telling of their problem and requesting Brown's early discharge.
The Army wasn't too understanding, however, and the residents of Cimarron had to wait for a year and a half before their doctor received a discharge. Davis said.
WHILE THE CITIZENS were without a doctor, an experimental nurse-clinician program was tried in Cimarron, Davis said. The hospital in Cimarron was staffed with some nurse-clinicians (registered
nurses who have an extra year of training). There was a direct line from the hospital to a clinic in Dodge City. If the nurse clinicians were unsure of the patient or if they had any questions, they could call.
The program was fairly successful, according to Davies, despite issues where basic first aid training is required.
Brown, who finally set up his practice last fall, provides care not only for the 1,500 residents of Cimarron, but also for several residents of Gray County as well, Davis said.
ANOTHER TOWN in Western Kansas, St. Francis, is also in desperate need of a doctor, according to Edna Daua, secretary of the chamber of commerce there.
St. Francis, a community of 4,186 people, is by only one doctor and is in desperate need of at least two.
St. Francis has several advantages to offer to young physicians, she said. There are good churches and schools, she said, and it is a good place in which to bring up children.
See DOCTOR Page 8
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol. 85—No.113 Wednesday, March 26, 1975 The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
By Staff Photographer GEORGE MILLENER III
The evil eye
Several students seemed to be casting a eye toward Gov. Robert F. Bennett just before he spoke on career opportunities in Kansas, Tuesday in Robert Hall After.
the speech, Bennett talked about a possible reduction in the proposed faculty salary increase.
City votes $4,000 for day care
BvSUSIEHANNA
Kansan Staff Reporter
The funds, awarded to the Douglas County Child Care Association (DCCA), will multiply six times with matching state and federal grants.
After a week's consideration, the city commission accepted Tuesday a deal it couldn't refuse. The commission appalled at 1,000 in city funds to local day care centers.
In other action, the commission moved to send notifications for sidewalk repairs to property owners in an area north of the University of Karsas and, through reveal of
a city ordinance, made any qualified voter eligible as a commission candidate.
Pay increase faces struggle
BY RICHARD PAXSON
Kansan Staff Reporter
Bennett, after a speech at the University of Kansas on job opportunities in Kansas, said some state legislators would probably try to reduce the faculty pay increase to eight per cent because of a controversy over education of elementary and secondary education.
HOWEVER, BENNETT SAID, some legislators favor a plan that would allow district boards to base their budgets for next year at 10% per cent of their expenditures for each pupil this year. He said if this proposal passes, some legislators would want to make some downward ad-hoc reductions in the increase of the state rolllee god, university funds.
Bennett said the Kansas Legislature was currently debating several proposals that would be based on how much school district boards could be supported annually. His proposal was that the boards be allowed to increase their budgets by the increase in the cost of living or by 10 per cent.
The proposed 10 per cent salary increase for state college and university faculties is in danger of being reduced, both Gov. Chris Christie and Chancellor Archie R. Dykes said Tuesday.
Changes in the availability of matching funds make it possible for the city's $4,000 appropriation for the DCCA to multiply to $24,000. When commitments of $4,000 from the city are met, funds will total $116,000 to local day care centers for the rest of 1975.
Bids were received Tuesday for construction of a proposed $5 million art museum on the University of Kansas campus.
The bidding, supervised by the Kansas University Endowment Association, was a result of efforts over several years to build an infrastructure Archie R. Dykes said Tuesday.
"If the 108 per cent passes." Bennett said,
"There might be some adjustment in faculty pay back to an eight per cent increase."
The proposed museum would be built immediately west of the Kansas Union.
"The bid opening today was another important step in the achievement of the goal of a new museum," Dykes said. "We are proud that ourarsons who have made these steps possible."
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes expressed his concern Tuesday about the possible reduction in a memorandum to deans, department chairmen and vice chancellors:
The museum would be "one of the out-
standing university art museums in the
world."
Art museum bids offered
He said construction would be funded completely from private funds, all of which
I have today talked again with legislative leaders about our budget requests. Apparently, the governor's budget recommendations will be reported favorably by the House Ways and Means Committee.
The proposed museum would provide more and safer display and storage areas than are available in Spoon Art Museum, the University's present art museum.
To guard the city's investment, the commission will act as a "watchdog" over the use of the city funds. A report on the types of families receiving funds will be
THE COMMISSION ALSO made a step toward the improvement of sidewalks in the University area. Letters will be sent to blocks of Mississippi and Indiana to notify
submitted to the commission by DCCA Jan 1, 1976. The city will then decide whether it wishes to continue support.
"This commission is made up of five people that don't necessarily agree," Rose
"HOWEVER, AN EFFORT is expected on the House floor to救缓 the budget
Rose said the public should know that its money wasn't being used for frivolous things.
"I don't think students going to school who have parents with incomes of $100,000 should be getting help," Pence said. "They should be in charity, but not for those underserving."
THE APPROPRIATION came after three years of requests by the DCCA. The commissioners had been reluctant to become involved in social services because they feared long-term commitments involving large sums of money.
At the commission meeting March 18, Commissioner Fred Pence said he objected to funding services for students who were attending school by free choice.
Mayor Jack Rose told Kaplan that his charge against the commission for the rape of a 15-year-old was overturned.
The commissioners also had expressed apprehension about the type of families they were to deal with. Coleman, county federal funds consultant, told the commission that the Social Rehabilitation Services, which presides over the county's a thorough screening of every applicant.
See CITY page 8
Coleman said that the questions concerned parents' income, their need to work, medical restrictions and their need to attend educational programs. Responses to the questions determine a person's eligibility, he said.
The multiplier factor, plus a stipulation that the city isn't obligated to continue support in 1976, helped change the commissioners' minds.
Mark Kaplan, Lawrence senior, questioned the commissioners' concern about University students using the services.
Bunnies, eggs once fertility signs
By STEWART BRANN Kansan Staff Reporter
The more things change, the more they stay the same, particularly the rites of Ecclesiology.
table centerpieces this time of year come from customs most sources say originated in ancient Egypt. Now linked with the celebration of Easter in the United States and most of Western Europe, these two trademarks were first religious or astrological symbols of life and fertility used to celebrate the advent of spring.
All the holiday hoopla that accompanies the arrival of Easter today has its roots in ancient Egypt. The celebration has the meaning, but the meaning is basically the same.
The bunnies and brightly-colored eggs that adorn department store aisles and
Wheeler defeats Snow in Kansas City election
John Janzen, associate professor of anthropology, said Tuesday that contemporary Easter symbols had about the same meaning as they did thousands of years ago.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)—Mayer
Charles B. Wheeler Jr. of Kansas City was reelected Tuesday to a second four-year term in the councilman Sarah Snow at 13.251 votes.
The unofficial total, with results in from all of the city's 319 precincts, gave Wheeler 45,110 votes to 31,859 for Snow, the first woman to seek the office of mayor.
They were the survivors of a four-way primary race Feb. 25 in which Wheeler won against Doyle and Walker.
Residents defeated a proposed amendment to the city charter that would have enabled the council to vote cost-of-living pay increases for itself.
Seven municipal judges and a new council also were elected.
The biggest upset was the defeat of councilman Sal Capra, who with 16 years was the longest-serving member of the state legislature defeated by Bob Hernandez, 7,454-4,146.
"It's an extremely old pagan tradition, like Christmas lights and many of the things associated with winter holidays," he said. "The egg and bumpy parts of the tradition welcome in spring, the beginning of life, the egg, and the prolongive ways of the bunny."
ACCORDING TO ONE SOURCE, ancient Egyptians and Persians died eggs in spring colors and gave them to friends as gifts. The earth was that the earth had hatched from an egg.
Christians later adopted the symbols as part of their celebration of the Resurre-
Eggs, once forbidden to be eaten during Lent, were later consecrated for ceremonial use in Christian churches at Easter. The rabbit, considered an ancient symbol of the sun, is sometimes included as a Christian symbol the moon determines the date of Easter.
Jazen said the egg theme at Easter was chiefly a European tradition, but similar to the Japanese tradition.
One tradition, he said, is the theme of the scarab, or "dung beetle," in Egypt. In the spring the scarab lays its eggs in animal dung, Janan janesen, then rolls the dung into a ball and buries it in a moist patch of ground, where the eggs later batch.
GYPTIANS HONOR the scarab as
See EASTER page 12.
downward if the public schools are not allowed a 10 per cent increase in their budgets. These efforts will probably focus on the increase in faculty salaries.
"Legislative leaders have expressed strong reservations about future funding if more concern is not shown for better teaching, better undergraduate advising and greater concern for undergraduate students generally."
faculty salaries were increased 10 per cent for fiscal 1975. Fiscal 1976 is the second year of a three-year program proposed by the Board of Regents to increase faculty salaries at the state colleges and universities to the level of comparable institutions.
The increase proposal then went to the House Ways and Means Committee. Hearings on KU's part of the request were Feb. 18. The committee announced March 23 to approve the two requests and forward them to the full House for consideration.
House minority leader Pete Loux of Wichita predicted Monday that the appropriations bill containing the increases wouldn't be considered by the House until near the end of the legislative session, sometime in mid-April.
BENNETT PREDICATED Tuesday that the 15 per cent increase in operating expenses would be passed by the Legislature with little opposition. But Bennett said there was some opposition in the Legislature to other parts of his budget proposal.
He labeled as "Democratic political paranoia" statements by Louis about the possible implementation of budget cuts in a federal agency by the Legislative Research Department.
The report, prepared at Loux' request, certified 20 million in possible cuts in healthcare spending.
ABOUT $1.2 MILLION of the proposed $2.6 million cut would be from the budgets of the state colleges and universities. An estimated $717,000 might be cut from the state budget. Another elimination of a special $100,000 allocation for the replacement of teaching equipment.
"I'm not too impressed if all the report can find to cut is $2.6 million from a 15.5 billion company."
★★
Extra funds already OK'd by House
A Kansas House Ways and Means subcommittee didn't debate Tuesday a request to authorize an extra $100,000 of spending this fiscal year by the University of Kansas Medical Center, as the Kansan reported Tuesday.
Instead, the bill in which the extra authorization would be contained has already been passed by the House Ways and Means Committee and the entire House, according to State Rep. Wendell Lady, Overland Park and committee chairman.
If the authorization for the extra $100,000 is to be approved, be said, it will probably be debated by the Senate Ways and Means Committee in the near future.