Jones is part of the University of Louisville School of Medicine’s , based at Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville, which offers students the opportunity to complete medical school in a small community.

It has been a perfect fit for Jones, who will receive her medical degree on May 11 from the and hopes to practice in a rural community.

“I want to practice wide-spectrum family medicine in Western Kentucky. I like the community clinics and small towns,” Jones said. “My husband is from Owensboro and we both like our families, so we want to stay in Western Kentucky.”

Physicians are badly needed in rural areas of the commonwealth, where many communities are medically underserved.

“If you look on a map of health professional shortage areas, almost all of Western Kentucky is blocked out. They don’t have enough of anything,” Jones said.

Jones, who grew up on a farm with her three siblings, is grateful for her down-to-earth upbringing.

“I was raised by a great set of parents. My dad has made an impressive career in the coal mines, runs the family farm and in his little spare time he is a volunteer firefighter,” Jones said. “I am outgoing and talkative just like my dad, but I don’t think I could ever be as hardworking. My mom works as a bookkeeper, taught us about Jesus and was very involved in our education.”

She also is inspired by her parents’ generosity in the community.

“Seeing how hard my parents worked and how involved they were in communities was enough for me to say I want to come back somewhere similar to home and be involved in that same way.”

Jones sees medicine as a perfect way for her to be involved.

“I like that it’s challenging, I’m always reading and learning and problem solving,” she said. “I also think there is a gap in medicine. I have a really strong faith and I think you miss that a lot in the medical community—doctors that pray and believe in healing and the other side that so many patients also do. So, filling that gap is a big part of why I am in medicine. I want to love others.”

After being introduced to Trover as an undergraduate at Murray State University, Jones spent a summer participating in the Trover Campus Rural Scholars Program. That experience sealed her decision to practice rural medicine.

“I was offered acceptance at four medical school programs, but I chose UofL largely because of the great experience I had in undergrad at the Trover Campus,” Jones said.

Although she did part of her training in Louisville, Jones likes the environment in Madisonville, which provided more one-on-one time with attending physicians.

“I see people all the time I know. It’s different to be somewhere you know people but also, it’s a different feeling from a big university hospital,” Jones said. “People know my parents or I know people’s parents, so it’s a different level of connection.” 

Jones will reach her goal a year sooner than most medical students thanks to Trover’s Rural Medicine Accelerated Track (RMAT), a program allowing students who intend to practice in a rural Kentucky community to finish medical school in three years rather than the typical four.

Jones and Bradley Watson, the 2024 graduates of the RMAT, are completing the program a decade after the first graduate finished in 2014. Jones and Watson also both were awarded the 2023 , which supports RMAT students.

In July, Jones will begin residency training at the UofL .

“It doesn’t really feel real,” she said. “I am finishing a year early so it doesn’t feel like I’ve been doing it that long. But I’m really excited to see what comes next.”

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On April 21, UofL Health announced that three primary care providers who are UofL School of Medicine faculty along with eight first-year resident physicians are opening a new office in Medical Plaza 1, Suite 306, 4402 Churchman Ave.

The new office becomes a second location of UofL Physicians – Family Medicine at Cardinal Station on Central Avenue. 

“This is a great opportunity to increase access and health services to an underserved population,” said Jonathan Becker, chair of the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at the UofL School of Medicine. “The immediate benefit is to south Louisville, but long term, the impact is much larger as our future physicians share best practices developed here with other communities and the state.”

“Expanding the School of Medicine’s Family Medicine Residency Program is good for UofL and UofL Health and mostly, good for the people served by Mary & Elizabeth Hospital,” said Toni Ganzel, dean of the UofL medical school and vice president for academic medical affairs at UofL. “In 2019, with the help of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, UofL and UofL Health took on a struggling health care system and promised that it would not close but would, in fact, grow.

“This expansion is another example in that continued growth and represents our ongoing commitment to providing high quality care to the people of Louisville today as we educate and train the health care workforce for tomorrow.”

“Mary & Elizabeth Hospital provides services for a population that has tremendous need for accessible primary care,” said Melisa Adkins, chief executive officer at UofL Health – Mary & Elizabeth Hospital. “The community we serve has above-average rates of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. The opening of this clinic with 11 new family medicine providers will have immediate positive impact on the health care of our south Louisville community.”

Current patients can move their care to the Mary & Elizabeth Hospital location or continue to receive health care services from other providers at the Cardinal Station location, Suite 100, 215 Central Avenue.

So, he chose a family medicine residency program that was close to his hometown and offered the environment of a community-based hospital.

“The Glasgow Family Medicine Residency is the best of both worlds,” Pender said. “As part of UofL, it offers the privileges and resources of a major institution, and as a community hospital, it provides the autonomy you can only have outside a large health care system.”

And now that Pender has completed his residency, he plans to stay in Glasgow, serving as a hospitalist at T. J. Samson Community Hospital and caring for the community’s population. That is a win both for the community of Glasgow and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

A shortage of physicians has threatened the health of residents in rural communities in Kentucky for more than three decades. Approximately 40% of Kentuckians live in rural areas, yet only 17% of primary care physicians practice there, and Kentucky ranks 43^rd nationally in its supply of primary care physicians relative to its population.

Primary care physicians – those in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics or other general health disciplines – ensure access to cost-effective management of illness and disability. Since more than half of physicians practice within 100 miles of where they do their residency training, it is important for physicians to train in the smaller communities where they are needed.

The UofL School of Medicine leads two family medicine residency programs in smaller communities in the state so that small and rural communities in Kentucky and beyond have access to primary care physicians.

The trains resident physicians in the south-central Kentucky community of approximately 14,000, preparing them to practice in a similar small or rural community. Glasgow’s T.J. Samson Community Hospital is the primary clinical training site for the residency program and was named one of  the by the Chartis Center for Rural Health.

R. Brent Wright, associate dean for rural health innovation at UofL, was director of the Glasgow Family Medicine Residency Program from 2002 to 2013.

“In terms of a residency program, if you have a community that embraces graduate medical education, like Glasgow has done, they are taking a long-term approach for serving their stakeholders, ” Wright said.  “They are making a commitment to those they treat for decades to come. They know that by training physicians in a close-knit and caring community, they will most likely stay within that community, close by or in a similar setting.”

The program’s 24-year track record bears out its mission. Approximately 70% of the more than 80 physicians who have completed training in the program still practice within a 90-minute drive of Glasgow, including Wright, Pender, a 2021 graduate, and Kara Gilkey, who now leads the hospital’s emergency department.

Building on the success of the Glasgow program, Wright assisted with the creation of the University of Louisville Owensboro Family Medicine Residency Program, . As the academic sponsor for the program, UofL provides not only experience, but residency director Jon Sivoravong and other faculty. The three-year program currently has 13 residents and is approved for up to 18, graduating an average of six family medicine physicians per year.

UofL medical students also can become familiar with rural medicine during their medical school years. Through the School of Medicine’s , UofL medical students can complete their final two years of medical school in Madisonville, a community of about 20,000 in southwestern Kentucky. Currently, 51% of Trover students who have completed their training initially chose a rural practice, and 48% of students from rural Kentucky are now in a rural Kentucky practice.

“To get physicians to practice in a small town, you have to admit students who are from a small town and train them in a small town,” said William Crump, associate dean of Trover Campus for the UofL School of Medicine.

Crump and his colleagues at UofL and Baptist Health Madisonville also prepare students from rural Kentucky communities for careers in health care through the High School Rural Scholars and College Rural Scholars programs. Of the 290 students who have participated in High School Rural Scholars, 75% have completed some type of health career training program. Of 97 students who have completed the College Rural Scholars program, 50 are either enrolled or have graduated from medical school.

For Pender, living and practicing in Glasgow is the right choice. He said many physicians who practice in urban areas are missing out on great opportunities in smaller communities, citing less traffic, a lower cost of living and friendlier people, as well as a wider scope of practice for primary care physicians since access to sub-specialty care is not as readily available. 

“For most of the physicians in an urban environment, the countryside is not on their radar. They think there is nothing here,” Pender said. “But there is a lot of opportunity here and you can make a good life.”

Richard Blondell, MD, vice chair for addiction medicine and professor of family medicine at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will give an overview of substance use disorders and ways to treat acute and chronic pain for patients with addiction. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the basement-level auditorium of the UofL Ambulatory Care Building, 550 S. Jackson St.

Blondell provides health care to patients as they withdraw and stabilize from drug and/or alcohol addiction. His research centers on clinical management strategies for groups of patients with prescription drug addiction, including pregnant women and people with chronic pain.

No stranger to Louisville, Blondell established the first addiction medicine consult service at UofL Hospital in 1998 to aid the trauma service with detox management following patient admission and referrals to addiction treatment programs at the time of discharge.

“I didn’t choose to specialize in addiction medicine so much as it chose me,” Blondell said. “I became the program director of the UofL Family Medicine Residency Program in 1989. Shortly thereafter, I sent two family medicine residents off to receive treatment of their substance use disorders.”

The Kentucky Medical Association sponsored an off-site, two-week addiction medicine training for Blondell, and over the years, he became increasingly involved in addiction medicine.

Blondell develops best practices for training the next generation of physicians on how to treat and prevent addiction. In 2013, he was named the first director of the National Center for Physician Training in Addiction Medicine, established by the American Board of Addiction Medicine Foundation (ABAMF). The addiction medicine fellowship he developed at the University of Buffalo Department of Family Medicine was among the nation’s first postgraduate addiction medicine residencies accredited by ABAMF.

Blondell completed his family medicine residency training at the UofL School of Medicine in 1981, and served on the faculty at the school from 1985 to 2003.

“By establishing a family residency program in Owensboro, we hope to improve the health of our region for years to come,” said Greg Strahan, president and CEO of Owensboro Health. “This program gives Owensboro Health a pivotal role in educating the next generation of physicians and will help meet an important need for more primary care in our area.”

The three-year program is expected to open with a class of six resident physicians and admit an additional six physicians each year. Residents will undertake a robust curriculum of classroom studies and clinical rotations, working alongside expert instructors and practicing physicians from a variety of specialties. They also will provide primary care at Owensboro Health’s family medicine location on Parrish Avenue, which means expanded health care access for area patients.

“Part of our vision for this program is that some physicians will want to continue practicing in Western Kentucky after they have completed their residency,” said Steve Johnson, vice president of government and community affairs for Owensboro Health. “For our system to be working toward that vision, with a valuable partner like UofL, is an exciting development for this region.”

The agreement between the two health care systems establishes UofL School of Medicine as the program’s academic sponsor, a key step toward obtaining approval and accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical ����ֱ��. Under the affiliation agreement, UofL will provide a program director and faculty and also lend its expertise to help the program achieve and maintain accreditation.

“UofL has achieved success with its family medicine residency program in Glasgow, Ky., in terms of building relationships in the community and improving primary care,” said Brent Wright, MD, UofL School of Medicine associate dean for rural health innovation, and vice chair for rural health and professor in the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at UofL. “We plan to achieve the same success in Owensboro.”

Rural-based graduate medical education programs are important to physician distribution since physicians tend to practice within a 100-mile radius of where they did their residency training, Wright said.

Lovelace, who studied finance and business prior to entering medical school, developed the tool as part of the , sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Foundation. Lovelace, one of 30 participants selected for the first cohort of the year-long program, participated in the group’s leadership workshop last summer, then worked with a physician mentor to create a project in Personal and Practice Leadership, one of three leadership tracks available to the scholars. The other tracks were Policy and Public Health Leadership and Philanthropic and Mission-Driven Leadership. Judges selected Lovelace’s project as the best in the Personal and Practice Leadership track.

Lovelace tapped into his business experience to create the detailed financial planning and budgeting tool. He explained that although physicians beginning residency may qualify to purchase expensive cars and higher-priced homes based on future income potential, it’s dangerous to make these purchase decisions without careful analysis of the whole financial picture – including medical education debt that may exceed $175,000.

“Often people will buy a car and sign an apartment lease as independent decisions and not consider how much of their monthly income they are committing to those two items. Those are binding agreements, so you can make two relatively straightforward decisions and put yourself in a bind throughout residency,” Lovelace said.

Lovelace’s budget program uses answers to 35 questions related to the user’s financial obligations to calculate their financial trajectory, including a detailed analysis for multiple student loan repayment options and a retirement savings projection. It then generates a report revealing areas of budget concern (too high or too low) and whether the user is projected to reach a retirement goal. It even provides suggestions of how to correct an underfunded retirement plan.

As part of the project submission, Lovelace created a of the budgeting tool and a poster describing the problem and how the analysis can help individuals avoid common pitfalls. He said his project mentor, Marc Matthews, MD, a family practitioner with the Mayo Clinic, encouraged him to increase the functionality of each module, adding value for the user, while keeping the project within the original scope.

Jason Marker, MD, MPA, past president of the AAFP Foundation who chairs the foundation workgroup that launched the FML Emerging Leader Institute, said Lovelace’s project exemplifies the leadership potential of the students and residents participating in the institute.

“One of our hopes with the FML Emerging Leader Institute was that we would take a group of scholars, many of whom had little formal family medicine leadership training, and accelerate their capacity and motivation toward being physicians with the understanding to practice medicine in the context of social determinants of health, elimination of health disparities and avoiding future physician burnout,” Marker said. “In that latter category, Michael’s project is a standout. As Michael is lecturing on this topic, I know he will help a lot of young physicians be successful.”

Stephen Wheeler, MD, associate dean for admissions at the UofL School of Medicine and a senior faculty member in the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine, has mentored Lovelace in family medicine and leadership at UofL.

“I first met Michael during his path toward medicine as a non-traditional applicant. Then, I worked with him during the two-year introduction to clinical cases small group experience. I am ecstatic that he feels called in this direction. He will be an exceptional family doctor,” Wheeler said.

At last summer’s leadership workshop, Marker led a session on Personal and Practice Leadership with Lovelace and the other FML Emerging Leader Institute participants.

“We talked about financial realities of practice and how ill-prepared many medical students and residents are for life beyond residency. The way Michael addressed this topic is excellent. He has made the information accessible for the broadest possible audience,” Marker said, adding that he hopes the project will ultimately be adapted for use by medical schools and residency programs to help physicians avoid financial missteps.

As the creator of the top project in his track, Lovelace will give an oral presentation of the project at the American Academy of Family Physicians on July 28 in Kansas City, Missouri, and attend , the annual educational meeting of the AAFP to be held in Orlando, Florida, in September.