The Orion Initiative is dedicated to a stronger health care workforce in rural areas. Today, physician shortages in rural areas are widespread. While nearly 20% of the US population lives in rural areas, only 9% of physicians practice medicine in rural communities.1 The Orion Initiative is working to attract physicians to rural areas through the sponsorship of four inaugural Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine (WARM) scholarships at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Currently, WARM offers a four-year rural medicine program to approximately twenty-six students annually who show a strong commitment to practicing rural medicine in Wisconsin after they complete their medical training. Through funding from the Orion Initiative, WARM is able to award its first group of comprehensive scholarships to medical students taking part in the WARM program. The full-tuition scholarships will be awarded annually and provide financial support that spans four years of study.
1 Physicians and rural America | PubMed Central®
Photo by Bryce Richter / UW–Madison
Testimonial
“The generous scholarship funding provided by the Orion Initiative will help ensure that we can recruit and train future physicians to optimize the health of individuals and families across rural Wisconsin. The vast majority of Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine (WARM) graduates stay in Wisconsin to practice. To date, we have not had dedicated scholarship funds to help recruit the best and brightest students from rural Wisconsin specifically to the WARM program. Students require significant financial resources to attend medical school, and providing scholarship funds is one of the best ways to help make it possible for individuals to consider attending medical school and to afford medical school. And it will help us recruit them to our WARM program to help them reach their goal of providing health care in underserved rural communities across our state.”
