Every problem in rural healthcare eventually comes back to the same question: who is going to do the work?
There are not enough doctors, nurses, dental hygienists, or medical assistants in the mountains of western North Carolina — and recruiting people from outside the region has not closed the gap. The answer the region keeps coming back to is simpler, and harder: grow your own.
In the finale of WNCW’s “More to the Story” series on rural healthcare access, host Dylan Henson sits down with Dr. Bryan Hodge, chief academic officer at MAHEC — the Mountain Area Health Education Center — along with Dr. Susan Mims, CEO of Dogwood Health Trust, and Maggie Sauer, director of the state’s Office of Rural Health, to talk about a shrinking workforce and a region trying to build its own way out…