This is the latest community dental practice under UofL management, with other locations in Elizabethtown, Louisville, Paducah and Shelbyville. Under the partnership, the practice will be known as Community Dental Clinic In Cooperation With UofL Dental Care.

The modern, 3,500 square foot dental clinic was established in 2009. It serves patients in the seven-county Green River district who do not have commercial dental insurance. Currently, the clinic is the only dental provider in the Owensboro area accepting new patients with Medicaid over the age of 3.

After the transition, services will continue to be provided by a licensed dentist or a UofL School of Dentistry student under the supervision of a licensed dentist. This will be a clinical rotation site for dental students who will learn alongside licensed dentists, gaining valuable experiences that help them become better dentists when they graduate.

Margaret Hill, interim dean of the UofL School of Dentistry, says the partnership is a natural extension of the school’s mission.

“We are expanding access to dental care across Kentucky. The Owensboro clinic provides an excellent opportunity to do that because it is designed to serve, and will continue to serve, low-income patients who have Medicaid or no dental insurance,” Hill said.

Suzanne Craig, chair of the Community Dental Clinic board of directors, says the partnership with UofL will benefit patients in several ways.

“This partnership will help to expand our mission and serve more patients as a whole,” she said. “It will provide the clinic with additional people and resources from the UofL School of Dentistry to support patient care at the clinic and outreach activities, including increased number of free dental screenings in local schools.”

Craig notes that the partnership will further benefit patients who require advanced care from a dental specialist.

“Affiliation with UofL will make it easier for patients to access the expertise of specialty programs within the School of Dentistry less than two hours away in Louisville.”

The University of Louisville also operates a nursing education program in Owensboro. The began as a partnership between UofL and Owensboro Health, providing students in the Owensboro area with the opportunity to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree in a traditional format.

With this new partnership, Kentucky’s premier metropolitan university is creating an even stronger connection with the Commonwealth’s fourth-largest city.

“Since its establishment in 1887, the UofL School of Dentistry has trained most dentists practicing in Kentucky. Many of our graduates have made the Owensboro area their home, and it’s only natural for us to establish roots there, as well,” Hill said.��

The Kentucky 3RNET Consortium — which also includes the Kentucky Office of Rural Health (KORH), the Kentucky Primary Care Association (KPCA) and the Kentucky Rural Health Association (KRHA) — will maintain and promote Kentucky-specific health care job postings on the (3RNET), a nonprofit online portal that helps job candidates more easily find health care openings in rural and underserved communities and helps community health centers, critical access hospitals and rural health clinics recruit candidates for open positions.

Consortium members will jointly manage Kentucky’s presence on the 3RNET site to expand the types of jobs posted and increase the use of the service throughout the commonwealth among both employers and candidates seeking jobs. This is the first time that a state’s postings at the 3RNET site will be monitored and maintained by a group of partners.

“Our commonwealth faces significant health care personnel challenges. This new consortium leverages the unique perspective and expertise of each organization to engage with job seekers and employers,” said Brent Wright, associate dean for rural health innovation at the UofL School of Medicine and the brainchild behind the consortium. “If we can fill vacancies in multiple health disciplines, we will improve access to health care services throughout the state.”

Director Ernie Scott said bringing the four organizations together to collectively address health care workforce shortages in Kentucky communities makes perfect sense.

“Workforce shortages cannot be singlehandedly addressed by just one organization in Kentucky or any other state. Instead, we’ve got to take a ‘village’ approach — we’ve got to come together as a unified team with a unified purpose,” Scott said. “Working together, this consortium will allow us to have a greater impact than any of our organizations could have individually.”

Ashley Gibson, ’s workforce program director, called the collaboration between organizations “essential” for the recruitment and retention of employees.

“Workforce shortages in our state are making it harder for people in many communities to access care,” she said. “This collaboration hopes to reverse that trend and actually expand access to health care services.”

Executive Director Tina McCormick said her organization is always looking for ways to support its members and partner with organizations that have a similar mission.

“Access to care is vital and without the workforce to support that care, our rural areas get left out again,” McCormick said. “We hope with this partnership we will build strong bonds across the state to provide job seekers access to open positions and provide employers a mechanism to locate prospective employees for their vacancies.”

3RNET, which works at the national level to improve rural and underserved communities’ access to quality health care through the recruitment of physicians and other health care professionals, allows health care facilities to post their open positions online at and lets health care professionals conduct free searches of those job openings. State-specific pages on the website — which contain information about communities, available job opportunities and loan repayment programs — are maintained by 3RNET members, including the newly formed Kentucky 3RNET Consortium.

UofL has a longstanding commitment to educate physicians for rural practice, including the Trover Rural Track in Madisonville, begun in 1998, where UofL medical students may elect to spend their final two years of medical school in a rural community hospital, the Glasgow Family Medicine Residency program, established in 1997, and the Owensboro Family Medicine Residency Program. These programs educate physicians in a rural or community hospital setting to increase the number of physicians who decide to practice in smaller communities.

UofL also co-administers the Kentucky Area Health ����ֱ�� Center (AHEC) to improve the recruitment, distribution and retention of health care professionals in medically underserved areas throughout the state. By leading the creation of this new consortium, UofL underscores its commitment to improve the health of all Kentuckians.

Inspired by those who cared for her grandmother with dementia and a cousin with cystic fibrosis, the Owensboro native became a nurse, graduating in December from the .

At the senior awards ceremony prior to graduation, Wilhoite was surprised to find out she won the , which specifically honors program students for having “the courage to be a servant-leader.” Winners receive $5,000 and commit to working for one year at .

In keeping with the award, Wilhoite recently asked if she could return a portion of it for the benefit of other students.

“I want this award to reflect all of us, not just me,” she said.

Amy Higdon, assistant dean of Owensboro BSN Programs and assistant professor in the School of Nursing, said the award is named after Vicki M. Stogsdill, the retired chief nursing officer of Owensboro Health.

“She always practiced servant-style leadership,” Higdon said. “The Owensboro faculty has the privilege of selecting the recipient of this award each semester and when considering which applicants embodied servant-style leadership, Maggie was a frontrunner.”

Important components of the program are service learning projects throughout the Owensboro community and a senior project completed during the Global Public Health course. Wilhoite asked the $2,000 she returned be used to help with these projects.

“Students can allocate the funds as they see fit, whether it be to enhance their project or donate to the community organization they collaborate with,” said Wilhoite, who grew up on an Owensboro farm.

Wilhoite said she applied for the award “on a whim,” and was shocked when she won.��

“There are 14 members of my graduating cohort. Each of us brings something special to the table,” she said. “We survived nursing school during a historically adverse time in health care. We are entering the nursing profession during uncertain times. We have all exhibited resilience and compassion, which are necessary traits for nurses. Any one of us would be more than deserving of this award.”

Because she graduated debt-free, she said, “I would not feel right accepting a servant-leadership award and keeping it all for myself if I am not struggling financially.”

Wilhoite said she told her mother she wanted to become a nurse in the third grade and she hopes to someday be able to use her skills on a medical mission trip. She credits her supportive family with helping her earn her degree.

“I want to be a part of something bigger than myself,” she said.��

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.”

Sonya Hardin, PhD, MBA, MHA, CCRN, NP-C, FAAN, dean of the UofL School of Nursing, will preside over the ceremony on Aug. 15 at 6 p.m. at the Health Sciences Center auditorium located in the Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, 500 S. Preston St.

“DNP students will graduate to become advanced practice nursing leaders who will shap health care and health systems,” said Sara Robertson, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, director of the DNP program and assistant professor at the UofL School of Nursing. “They are prepared to transform health care by applying the latest in evidence-based research into practice. This will improve population health and health care delivery.”

The doctoral program is designed for students with a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in nursing and focuses on creation and implementation of evidence-based care, management of care, leadership in health care organizations and development of health policy.

The School of Nursing offers advanced practice nursing specialties in adult-gerontology primary care, adult-gerontology acute care, family medicine, neonatal care and psychiatric care.

Meanwhile, upper division bachelor of science in nursing students will take part this month in a transition ceremony where undergraduate students begin the clinical curriculum and transition into the profession of nursing. The event is Aug. 25 at 2 p.m. in the Student Activities Center (SAC), Ballroom, 2100 S. Floyd St.

The UofL School of Nursing Owensboro extension program also will host a transition ceremony on Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. at Owensboro Regional Hospital, Building B Auditorium, 1201 Pleasant Valley Rd., Owensboro.