Contact: Holly Hobaugh, pre-professional advisor, (812) 237-8633

Writer: Dave Taylor, ISU Public Affairs, (812) 237-3743

     The four Wabash Valley residents are among eight Indiana State University students headed to medical school following this weekend's graduation. Five more students are bound for dentistry and pharmacy schools.

     A Rural Health Scholars program aimed at addressing a shortage of primary care physicians is credited for boosting the number of pre-health professional graduates at Indiana State to levels not seen for some time.

     While not all the graduates are Rural Health Scholars, the 6-year-old program and the presence of the Indiana University School of Medicine's Terre Haute Center for Medical Education on the ISU campus benefit all students.

     "Because we have the relationship with the Terre Haute Center, students have opportunities for research and networking. All the things that help the Rural Health students are in place and accessible to other students," said Holly Hobaugh, preprofessional adviser.

     "In addition to bringing us some very strong students, the Rural Health program also motivates other students and they become part of a group of students that work together, study together and work toward admission to medical school," said Eric Glendening, associate professor of chemistry. Six of the eight Indiana State students accepted to medical school this fall are chemistry majors.

      Nichols and Ellis got an early taste of what it's like to be a rural doctor thanks to such family physicians as Betty Dukes of Dugger. Dukes counts Nichols among an estimated 12,000 babies she delivered during a 45-year career in Sullivan and Greene counties. She and her husband, Joe Dukes, were Ellis' family doctors until the couple retired in 1990.

     "They were pretty legendary in the community and that was a big influence on me. Seeing the kind of relationship they had with their patients and the community in general kind of exemplified what it was to be a rural doctor," Ellis said. Betty Dukes delivered Nichols because her family's regular doctor was out of town. Most of what Nichols knows of Dukes she learned from nurses and others at Sullivan County Community Hospital where the obstetrics center is named for "Dr. Betty." Nichols' regular doctors included Bill Daugherty, whose practice was next door to his Hutsonville, Ill. home, and Gene Bourgasser of Sullivan.

     Long interested in health and science, Nichols credits retired Sullivan High School biology teacher Carlton Wright with sparking her interest in biology and says she caught the chemistry bug while attending Indiana State. But it wasn't until a physicians' shadowing experience at the Clay City Center for Family Medicine that she made up her mind to be a family doctor.

     "I got to follow the family physicians and got to see what they did on a daily basis. From that moment on, I knew that's what I wanted to do: helping people feel better, getting to know them and work with them on a daily basis," she said. Both Nichols, a 1999 Sullivan High School graduate, and Ellis, a 1999 Union High School graduate, originally planned to attend Indiana University for their pre-med education until they learned of the Rural Health program.

     "I just felt like that program was really meant for me," she said, noting her experience at Indiana State was "totally different" from what she expected. "The professors are really friendly and involved in what we do. They take the time to not just know us as students and what our GPAs are but they really try to know us as people," she said.

    "Right from the freshman year I had PhD professors teaching labs. You don't get that in a lot of other schools," Ellis added. Nichols and Ellis will be attending the Indiana University School of Medicine. In keeping with the mission of the Rural Scholars program, both plan to eventually practice in small, medically underserved Indiana towns.

     Sheehan will also attend the IU School of Medicine but is undecided about his area of concentration. "I just want to get a general idea of what medicine's all about. I try not to pick one area to focus on right now because things change," said the 1998 Terre Haute North Vigo High School graduate.

     Volunteering at Union Hospital is what turned Sheehan on to medicine. "Every night there was a different case, a different patient that kind of touched you," he said, adding that being a doctor is "an almost altruistic endeavor. You just have people depending on you. That was truly motivating and since that time that's all I wanted to do."  While he knew he had the ambition, Sheehan wasn't sure he had the skill to become a doctor until he took an accelerated human gross anatomy course last summer at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. He came away with the highest score of 30 pre-medicine students from around the country.

     "That's when I knew I had the skills and could compete and could do this," he said. For Thompson, 34, medicine is a second career. "I buy and sell houses and rent houses. It's handy but not as lucrative as I'd like it to be. It's not a pleasant business and I just didn't think I was contributing in a significant way," she said. "Helping other people improve their quality of life would be really rewarding to me."

     Thompson suffered from a thyroid disorder that went undetected for 10 years. She looks forward to helping others detect illnesses that are often overlooked. The 1987 Terre Haute South Vigo High School graduate will attend the University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kansas City, Mo. She plans to be a general practitioner. Indiana State and the University of Nebraska at Omaha are the only universities in the nation with programs aimed at producing rural doctors, said Roy Geib, director of  the Terre Haute Center for Medical Education.

     Graduates of Indiana State's pre-medicine program receive a bachelor of arts degree after completing a traditional premed curriculum that has been modified to enhance the likelihood of success in the practice of rural medicine. "It's important for medical schools to have a social context to try to meet the needs of graduates who will be practicing in rural areas," Geib said. In addition to Rural Health scholarships, Geib credits Indiana State's Presidential Scholarship program for helping make pre-medicine more affordable for students.

      "Doctors who practice in rural areas generally earn less than those in urban or suburban settings. Therefore, another goal of the program is to help students limit the amount of debt they incur to finance their education," Geib said. According to the Indiana Department of Public Health, 19 of Indiana's 92 counties have a shortage of primary care physicians and four more have a partial shortage.

Pre-health professional students accepted to professional schools:

       Dominique Dempah, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, chemistry major, IU School of Medicine

       David Ehresman, Hebron, pre-pharmacy major, Purdue University School of Pharmacy

       Dustin Ellis, Dugger, chemistry major, IU School of Medicine

       Julie Kiefer, Greensburg, chemistry major, IU School of Dentistry

       April Kirby, Fortville, life sciences major, IU School of Medicine

       Lindsey Ledford, Corydon, chemistry major, Purdue University School of Pharmacy

       Robert McGee, Poland, life sciences MS, IU School of Medicine

       Heather Nichols, Sullivan, chemistry major, IU School of Medicine

       Terrence O'Neill, Greenwood, mechanical technology major, IU School of Dentistry

       Andrea Parker, Plymouth, life sciences major, Purdue University School of Pharmacy

       Jacob Pong, Valparaiso, chemistry major, IU School of Medicine

       Mike Sheehan, Terre Haute, life sciences major, IU School of Medicine