MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi high school juniors considering medical careers in their home state have the opportunity to take part in an intense and revealing summer program at Mississippi State University.

The five-week Rural Medical Scholars summer program at MSU aims to identify the state’s future primary care doctors and help them prepare for medical school admission.

“Mississippi has the lowest number of physicians per capita in the nation,” said Bonnie Carew, rural health program leader for MSU’s Extension Service. “Clearly, this limits access to care for the state’s residents and contributes to many of the negative health status indicators plaguing the state.”

Carew said concern for adequate health care increases as the number of rural physicians decreases. One goal of the program is to develop a pipeline of future medical providers.

“The program is clearly meeting the need it was designed to accomplish -- increasing the availability of primary care physicians and health care services throughout rural Mississippi,” she said. “To date, 236 students have participated in the RMS program, with most planning health-related careers. Twenty-four of our graduates went on to medical school, and 14 of those are practicing physicians today.”

The program is sponsored by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the University of Mississippi Medical Center with additional assistance from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Twenty rising senior years with an ACT composite score of at least 25 will take two pre-med courses on the Starkville campus -- biology and pre-calculus -- and observe doctors at practice from May 29 until June 30.

The selected scholars will receive tuition, housing and textbooks during the program. A $60 registration fee is required after acceptance, and the scholars will be responsible for their food expenses. Applications must be submitted by March 19. Applications and program details are available online at http://www.RMS.msucares.com.