Increasing the medical school applicant pool: a key to training more rural physicians.

Context: Workforce studies show shortages of physicians in many areas of the United States. These shortages are especially severe in states such as Kentucky with many rural counties and are predicted to worsen in the future unless there are changes throughout our educational system to build aspirations and prepare students for medical school education.

Purpose: To examine rural-urban differences and community characteristics of applicants and matriculants to Kentucky's two allopathic medical schools and influences on the educational aspirations of young students who wish to become physicians.

Physician computer skills: a prerequisite to the future in healthcare services.

Physicians in Kentucky have been slow to endorse and implement electronic medical records and other forms of information technology (IT), although this technology is available to them. Information was ob tained from medical relicensure data for all licensed Kentucky physicians and through two sample surveys to assess the use of IT in Kentucky medicine. Sixty-eight percent of licensed physicians recorded an e-mail address on their annual relicensure application, but more physicians were knowledgeable about IT than indicated by this relicensure response.