There has been a severe shortage of trained physicians in Minnesota’s outlying communities.

The Minnesota Health Department says there are just 263 doctors in isolated areas of the state — that’s out of more than 28,000 statewide.

The University of Minnesota training program is hoping to change that by teaching students how to prepare sutures, consult patients and perform safe childbirth procedures.

“So you definitely need to be well-trained and well-equipped to handle whatever may come into the room that day,” said Ashlyn Jenc, a third-year student at the U of M Medical School.

These students are part of the Rural Physician Associate Program, or RPAP for short, which is an effort to get more doctors into Minnesota’s wide open spaces.

“The rural physician shortage continues to escalate, pushes the need to find different ways to cultivate an interest in rural medicine,” Dr. Kirby Clark, director of RPAP, said.

The latest numbers from the Health Department show there are 28,373 trained physicians across Minnesota, with 17,079 practicing in the metro.

However, only 576 doctors are in small towns and just 263 in isolated rural areas.

“I think the vacancy rates are probably as high as they’ve been and it takes longer to fill those spots,” said Zora Radosevich, director of the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care for MDH. “Rural physicians tend to be older and they are closer to retirement, and the pandemic was leading many of them to consider retiring.”

The idea behind RPAP is to fill that gap.

The program includes 35 students a year who are trained in a wide variety of skill sets, because they will almost certainly need those skills if they move to a rural area.

“If you want providers to continue practicing in these areas, you have to train them there,” said Nyika Friberg, a fourth-year student at the U of M Medical School.

The students train to be family physicians in the Twin Cities and spend nine more months in a community outside the metro.

“They can take care of patients in the clinic, in the hospital, in the nursing home, they can deliver babies in labor and delivery, they can do home visits. That’s what rural communities need,” Clark added.

Around 1,800 med students have trained since the program began in 1971.

Jenc, who grew up in central Minnesota, said she’s eager to begin. “I think it’s really important to be able to go back to those communities and provide health care because I think that all areas of the state should have access to health care readily.”

The medical school says the students will be heading out of the classroom for their training in rural communities starting on Monday.