{"id":1966,"date":"2024-12-15T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/happy-liskov.74-208-176-141.plesk.page\/2024\/?post_type=story&#038;p=1966"},"modified":"2025-01-29T22:54:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T22:54:33","slug":"new-primary-care-physicians-contribute-to-healthier-arizona","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/story\/new-primary-care-physicians-contribute-to-healthier-arizona\/","title":{"rendered":"New primary care physicians contribute to healthier Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2019, an estimated 600 primary care providers were needed to alleviate an alarming shortage of primary care physicians in Arizona. To address the state\u2019s shortage, the legislature approved $8 million in annual funding to support scholarships for medical students through the <a href=\"https:\/\/healthsciences.arizona.edu\/news\/releases\/uarizona-health-sciences-primary-care-physician-scholarship-program-expands-eligibility\">University of Arizona Health Sciences Primary Care Physician Scholarship program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last fall, three PCP Scholarship recipients \u2013\u00a0<b>Dawn Bowling, MD<\/b>,\u00a0<b>Megan Kelly, MD<\/b>, and\u00a0<b>George Nguyen, MD<\/b>\u00a0\u2013 entered the workforce as physicians, fulfilling the program\u2019s promise of expanding access to health care in the state.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Fulfilling a Promise: Serving in Rural Arizona\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aCxaIb5KL7U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor many years, Arizona has faced a growing need for more primary care physicians, especially in medically underserved urban and rural areas,\u201d said\u00a0<b>Michael D. Dake, MD<\/b>, senior vice president for the <a href=\"https:\/\/healthsciences.arizona.edu\">University of Arizona Health Sciences<\/a>. \u201cThe Primary Care Physician Scholarship program was built to help fill this need and improve access to care for all Arizonans. We are so proud to see the first of our PCP Scholarship recipients return to Arizona. We know they will have an immediate and positive impact as doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>A bridge to better care<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Nguyen studied physiology as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona before graduating from the <a href=\"https:\/\/phoenixmed.arizona.edu\">College of Medicine \u2013 Phoenix<\/a> and completing a residency at Banner \u2013 University Medical Center Phoenix. He recently became an assistant clinical professor of internal medicine at the College of Medicine \u2013 Phoenix in addition to his work at Banner Health Center in Arcadia.<\/p>\n<p>For Nguyen, the path to becoming a physician had a bridge, but not one he had to cross. Rather, it was a bridge he provided as a teenager to help his family navigate the health care system.<\/p>\n<p>Nguyen grew up in Peoria, Arizona, a once-rural city that is now part of the vast Phoenix metropolitan area. His Vietnamese parents did not speak English well, which resulted in challenging conversations when Nguyen\u2019s grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease and dementia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy parents had lived in America for some time and were the main caretakers for my grandma, but they had never needed to be involved in my grandmother\u2019s health care like this situation called for,\u201d said Nguyen, who was in high school at the time. \u201cAnd not speaking English well was another layer on top of the barriers they began to face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nguyen felt inspired to become a leader within his family and took the initiative to facilitate their health care needs. His proficiency with the English language helped overcome many of the major hurdles the family faced, and that sense of service led him to broader ambitions to become a doctor.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2030\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2030\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2030 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/2-George-Nguyen-94-FR.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/2-George-Nguyen-94-FR.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/2-George-Nguyen-94-FR-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/2-George-Nguyen-94-FR-768x484.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Primary Care Physician Scholarship recipient George Nguyen, MD, is now a doctor of internal medicine and a clinical assistant professor at the College of Medicine \u2013 Phoenix. Photo by Noelle Haro-Gomez, U of A Health Sciences Office of Communications<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWhat I\u2019ve realized is that my family situation is very similar to other patients and their family situations,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cThere are a lot of barriers that patients are not able to get through to access health care. I wanted to be a bigger part of that, and I felt like being a primary care physician was one way I could achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>A pivot to a new passion<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Kelly completed medical school at the College of Medicine \u2013 Phoenix and a residency at Banner \u2013 University Medical Center Phoenix. She was hired at the Neighborhood Outreach Access to Health Desert Mission Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p>Like Nguyen, Kelly was born and raised in the Phoenix area. Her grandmother is a nurse, which fostered her early interest in taking care of people. This led her to Tucson to pursue an undergraduate degree at the <a href=\"https:\/\/publichealth.arizona.edu\">Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health<\/a>. She planned to get a master\u2019s degree in public health, too, but as she progressed through her undergraduate studies, she became more interested in patient care and pivoted to medical school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realized that many of my interests in public health could have more impact in the clinical setting,\u201d Kelly explained. \u201cAddressing inequities in our health care system and understanding different types of patient populations is what family medicine is so passionate and focused on. So it was a pretty easy decision from there to go into family medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2033\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2033\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2033 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/3-Megan-Kelly-97-FR.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"610\" srcset=\"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/3-Megan-Kelly-97-FR.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/3-Megan-Kelly-97-FR-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/3-Megan-Kelly-97-FR-768x468.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2033\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Primary Care Physician Scholarship recipient Megan Kelly, MD, is now a doctor at Neighborhood Outreach Access to Health Desert Mission Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Phoenix. Photo by Noelle Haro-Gomez, U of A Health Sciences Office of Communications<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kelly believes her background in public health gives her a unique perspective in understanding her patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt makes me more compassionate,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s not just treating a disease and giving them a treatment plan. I understand that I need to look at the whole person and consider that they have a life outside of the four walls of the clinic, where stressors and other factors either contribute to their condition or perhaps make it difficult to pursue certain treatment path. Those are all things a primary care physician needs to take into account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly is excited for others to follow in the path made possible by the Primary Care Physician Scholarship program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more primary care physicians we have, the healthier our population can be,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cMore physicians give more people access to the health care system. And the more access people have to their primary care physician, the easier it becomes to catch infections and diseases early. This provides better paths to treatments for patients and results in healthier populations in general.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2032,"parent":0,"template":"","college":[],"uahs_theme":[12],"class_list":["post-1966","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","uahs_theme-next-generation-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New primary care physicians contribute to healthier Arizona - University of Arizona Health Sciences Annual Impact Report 2024<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/annualreports.healthsciences.arizona.edu\/2024\/story\/new-primary-care-physicians-contribute-to-healthier-arizona\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New primary care physicians contribute to healthier Arizona - University of Arizona Health Sciences Annual Impact Report 2024\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2019, an estimated 600 primary care providers were needed to alleviate an alarming shortage of primary care physicians in Arizona. 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