HAVANA, Fla. \u2014 For a rural community, this town of 1,750 people has been more fortunate than most. A family doctor has practiced here for the last 30 years.<\/p>\n
But that ended in December when Mark Newberry retired. To attract a new doctor, Havana leaders took out want ads in local newspapers, posted notices on social media<\/a>, and sweetened the pot with a rent-free medical office equipped with an X-ray, an ultrasound machine, and a bone density scanner \u2014 all owned by the town.<\/p>\n Local leaders hope the recruitment campaign will help attract candidates amid a nationwide shortage of doctors.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is important for our community,\u201d said Kendrah Wilkerson, Havana\u2019s town manager, \u201cin the same way that parks are important and good future planning is important.\u201d<\/p>\n According to a Florida Department of Health report, doctor shortages affect all or part<\/a> of nearly every county, but less populous counties, such as Gadsden, where Havana is located, have the fewest physicians per 10,000 residents.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s doctor shortage is expected to grow in the next decade, with one study<\/a> projecting a statewide need of 18,000 physicians \u2014 including 6,000 primary care doctors \u2014 by 2035.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a huge, huge issue,\u201d said Matthew Smeltzer, a managing partner of Capstone Recruiting Advisors, a company that helps hospitals, physician practices, and other employers find and hire doctors. \u201cIt probably hits small towns the hardest, just because most people would prefer to live in a midsize or large community.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n In this challenging environment, Havana leaders are hoping that want ads and rent-free perks will make their small town stand out and persuade a doctor to practice here.<\/p>\n Wilkerson describes the community, just south of the Georgia border, as an ideal place to raise a family. Its country roads are lined with farms, pastures, and churches. Main Street downtown features antique stores, gift shops, a general store, and restaurants.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything you would imagine a Hallmark movie to be is kind of where we live,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cIt\u2019s people who still care and look out for each other, and neighbors are actually friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Offering generous incentives was how town leaders got Newberry to practice in Havana in 1993. The town gave Newberry an initial deal similar to the one it\u2019s offering now, and later began providing him about $15,000 a year in financial support.<\/p>\n Newberry, who served about 2,000 patients, declined to be interviewed. \u201cI\u2019m just retiring!\u201d he said in an email, adding that \u201cthe town has chosen unconventional ways\u201d of recruiting a doctor.<\/p>\n By subsidizing office space and the use of medical equipment to attract a doctor, Havana is looking out for the needs of its residents, Wilkerson said.<\/p>\n Without a town doctor, some of Newberry\u2019s former patients now have to travel to Tallahassee, about a 30-minute drive southeast of Havana. Others are seeing doctors in Quincy, about a 20-minute drive west.<\/p>\n \u201cOur hope is that they\u2019ll come back when we find us a new doctor,\u201d Havana Mayor Eddie Bass said.<\/p>\n Susan Freiden, a former town manager who retired in 2006, said having a local doctor is also important to meet the needs of the town\u2019s low-income residents, many of whom are older adults. \u201cNot everybody can get to Tallahassee to get a doctor,\u201d she said. \u201cNot everybody has transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n But it remains to be seen whether rent-free office space and equipment are enough to attract a doctor to Havana. The town\u2019s recruitment campaign has drawn a lot of interest from nurse practitioners, but few primary care physicians have applied for the position.<\/p>\n Town leaders say they\u2019re holding out hope of finding a family physician, who can practice and prescribe medications independently.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would really, you know, prefer to have a true doctor that can handle it all for us,\u201d Bass said.<\/p>\n Smeltzer, the physician headhunter, said primary care physicians are in especially low supply. And though in his experience Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are among the places doctors want to live and work, it often takes something extra to persuade them to work in a small town, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone wants to practice in a small town, they\u2019re more likely to go to where they have ties, whether it\u2019s themselves or their spouse or significant other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The challenge for a community of Havana\u2019s size, Smeltzer said, is that \u201cthere may literally be nobody from that town that went to med school. Or, if there is, maybe it\u2019s one. But were they a primary care physician?\u201d<\/p>\n Still, there is a silver lining. Smeltzer said young physicians are placing a high value on work-life balance and meaningful relationships with their patients \u2014 qualities that may give an edge to a small-town, independent practice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hear quality of life and work-life balance far more in the last three to five years than we ever heard before,\u201d he said, \u201cand that\u2019s almost in lockstep with compensation in terms of what they\u2019re focusing on.\u201d<\/p>\n Freiden, the former Havana town manager, said those are the same values Newberry had when he started to practice here. She even became one of his patients.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was just perfect,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause he wasn\u2019t all about the money, if you can imagine that. He was kind of a different kind of physician.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately for Havana, the town recently received interest from a family medicine doctor who grew up here, went to medical school, and expects to finish a three-year residency at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare in June.<\/p>\n Camron Browning<\/a>, a 2003 graduate of Northside Havana High School, told the seven-member Town Council in a December interview that he was focusing on family medicine and that, during his residency, he has seen thousands of patients, delivered babies, and gained experience as a hospitalist.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal,\u201d he said, \u201cwas to be able to come home and serve my hometown.\u201d<\/p>\n Smeltzer said Havana\u2019s incentives could be attractive to new doctors, such as Browning, who would face daunting startup costs to establish an independent practice.<\/p>\n After the December interview, the Council voted unanimously to begin contract negotiations with Browning, who said he would plan to be ready to see patients as soon as possible after completing his residency.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here to stay,\u201d Browning told the Council. \u201cThis was always my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n