UNC program responds to call for expansion

UNC's Area Health Education Centers program is looking to expand to accommodate an increased number of pharmacy and other health professional students.

"We've been asked to respond to a shortage of pharmacists in key areas around the state," said Robert Blouin, dean of the School of Pharmacy.

Pharmacy students and other health care professionals travel to AHEC sites in their final year of school not only to receive clinical training but to help provide a critical service for the people of the region.

AHEC Director Thomas Bacon said expansion will allow more health care officials to participate.

"We can directly point to a thousand physicians who have graduated from AHEC residency programs who have stayed in the area (around the clinics)," Bacon said.

Students in AHEC residential programs are much more likely to stay in the small towns around the centers in which they were trained, helping curb discrepancies in health coverage across the state.

AHEC in turn encourages more students in public schools to enter health professions in hopes of better matching the racial makeup of the state, Bacon said.

The expansion also will advance the technological capabilities of the program.

Recent cuts left AHEC with a tight budget, so the program needs additional funds before it can expand.

"We've been asked to do more - with a reduced funding base from the state," Bacon said.

Campus leaders have pointed to AHEC as crucial to the University's mission of service to the state.

"AHEC is a shining example of an outreach program that improves the health of North Carolinians in every part of the state," Chancellor James Moeser said last week during his State of the University address.

The expansion of AHEC comes in light of the planned revisions to MedAir, an AHEC program that allows health officials to fly to clinics throughout the state.

The program, based out of Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport, could be relocated to Raleigh-Durham International as soon as 2008, when the construction of UNC's satellite campus Carolina North is scheduled to begin.

The drive to RDU is estimated to be three times as long as the trip to Horace Williams during rush hour, and some have said they will be less willing to participate in MedAir.

But AHEC officials are working to accommodate those that might be put out by the trip to RDU.

"You're never going to have another site that is convenient as that, but we're willing to work," Bacon said.

He said program leaders are considering a van service that will transport participants to RDU, allowing them to work on the trip.

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.