St. Luke’s wins 2 federal grants

St. Luke’s graduate medical education department recently secured two federal grants to educate and train a new generation of physicians specializing in rural medicine.

The funds, issued by Health Resources and Services Administration, will prepare physicians for practice in small-town settings and help strengthen rural communities that have difficulty accessing health care services.

St. Luke’s secured $3.25 million in federal grants to support rural health efforts.

These grants will further enhance the existing family medicine rural residency training program and help establish a new and novel psychiatry rural residency training program. St. Luke’s GME researched the availability of these grants with specific rural regions in mind, namely Carbon and Schuylkill counties and areas surrounding St. Luke’s Miners,

Carbon and Lehighton campuses and Geisinger St. Luke’s Hospital.

One of the grants designates $2.5 million over the next five years to expand the existing Family Medicine Rural Residency Training Track residency program in Coaldale, with plans to increase rural sites and telehealth services in additional St. Luke’s rural service areas.

The other grant, $750,000, will be used over the next three years to start a novel a Psychiatry Rural Training Track residency program to improve access to behavioral health services for underserved/rural populations, with a