Dr. John Wheat, M.D.

By Dr. John Wheat, M.D.

I have been asked by a colleague and challenged by an in-law to explain how I can justify support for the tax reform bill. I will do so from my experience.

For three decades The University of Alabama School of Medicine and The University of Alabama have recognized that rural students experience a disadvantage in their desire to become doctors. In 1973, The University of Alabama School of Medicine received a grant that provided scholarships to me and a few of my classmates based on our rural Alabama backgrounds. In the 1980s, The University of Alabama received a major grant to develop the BioPrep Program specifically to help boost rural Alabama children of the Blackbelt into the medical profession. Both of these efforts presumed that rural children exist with the God-given talent to become physicians, but are left behind through no fault of their own, but through inadequate funding of schools and other public resources such as libraries and recreational facilities.

I have been a faculty member of The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences since 1990 and have worked to help produce more rural physicians. Alabama leaders recognize the importance of this effort because rural Alabama has fallen behind in the quality of life related to local medical care. Local medical care impacts the health of many rural citizens, the ability of rural communities to sustain or recruit industry, and the productivity of the rural and farm workforces. Even our urban centers shudder at the impact of a crumbling rural health infrastructure. Rural physicians represent building blocks in creating sustainable rural communities, which are required to nourish cities.

Since 1990, we have encouraged more than 400 rural high school students to become Rural Health Scholars, Rural Science Scholars, or Minority Rural Health Scholars, and we have encouraged more than 70 rural college students to enter medical education as Rural Medical Scholars. These students have performed well in college and professional schools. Many have become nurses, physical therapists, and health administrators. In addition to the Rural Medical Scholars entering The University of Alabama School of Medicine, others have entered medicine at the University of South Alabama, osteopathic medicine in out-of-state schools, pharmacy and veterinary medicine at Auburn University, and dentistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A large percentage of the graduating physicians from this group are choosing to become family physicians and making plans for rural practice. These rural students, including many from Alabama’s most economically depressed communities, show that contributing to their education is a worthy investment.

I have benefited from hard work but also from public support for my education. Others have accrued personal resources from hard work, but were also helped by the favorable public climate of Alabama, often including their own education. How can I hold back now, when I know for certain that rural school children have such strong potential to become just what we need in this state -- rural physicians, teachers, nurses, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers, etc. -- and are limited only by inadequate public resources? That is why my conscience dictates that I vote “Yes” on Sept. 9.

Dr. John R. Wheat, MD, MPH, is a professor of Community and Rural Medicine and Internal Medicine at The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa. Dr. Wheat is a native of rural Alabama; he grew up in Sumter County and graduated from high school in Autauga County. He is an Internal Medicine specialist with additional certification in occupational medicine and preventive medicine, but his chosen calling is helping rural students become physicians or related health professionals who will serve in their hometowns or other underserved rural communities in Alabama. After completing his medical training at The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and San Diego; earning his master's degree in public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and practicing in Australia (as a Naval Medical Officer) and Memphis, he came home to Alabama where he has devoted his career to improving health and medical services in rural Alabama. He is founder and director of three programs for rural students at The University of Alabama that have been attended by more than 400 students from rural areas, representing almost every Alabama county.