Freeman-KCU residency partnership to gain space in Neosho
Aug. 3—NEOSHO, Mo. — Freeman Health System is adding space at its Neosho medical office complex to house a residency program in partnership with Kansas City University to train new physicians in the challenge of providing care in rural communities.
Freeman Neosho Hospital held a press briefing Thursday to talk about the $1.2 million expansion of the Freeman Neosho Physicians' Group building at 336 S. Jefferson St.
"Freeman Neosho Hospital and Physicians' Group are thrilled to serve as the rural location for Kansas City University's Family Medicine Residency Clinic," said Renee Denton, Freeman Neosho Hospital's chief operating officer. "It is infrequent that a full residency clinic is available to a rural location, so to have this clinic available in Neosho will be extremely beneficial and increase access to medical care right here at home."
When completed, the 4,266-square-foot addition will house 14 examination rooms, two physician offices, a consultation area and three support staff workstations for the clinic. The existing building's fire alarm system will be upgraded, and 10 parking spaces will be added. The addition is projected to be completed by the end of the year.
Dr. Barbara Miller, director of the family medicine program at the clinic, said she and the physicians group are incorporating the new residency program into the expanded space.
In July 2022, the clinic's first two residents, Dr. Omar Rehman and Dr. Terrance Kelly, began accepting patients. Last month, Dr. Brandyce Elia and Dr. Robert Morris joined the team. Two more doctors will be added next July.
Miller said the family medicine doctors are the "utility players" of the medical field — they have to know a little bit of everything and have to know how to find the correct specialists when needed.
The program in Neosho focuses on training physicians to work in rural settings, far from bigger cities with more extensive medical facilities.
Miller came to Freeman Neosho in 2019 after 11 years as a family physician in Shattuck, Oklahoma, a town of about 1,200 in northwest Oklahoma.
"It was three hours from Oklahoma City, three hours from Amarillo, three hours from almost anything," Miller said. "I joined a primary care group there that had really practiced family medicine in almost every way you possibly can. We took care of patients in the hospital and delivered babies, and did some small surgeries and quickly learned how to do everything we're trained to do in that community."
Miller said technology has helped make the resources of a larger community more widely available in many cases, but a rural family physician still has to know how to use his or her resources.
"You have to be creative to work in a low-resource environment," Miller said. "You have to be comfortable with uncertainty, which not everybody is able to do. There are still the foundational things we need to know to do, but it is thinking about how you're going to take care of the problems with fewer tools at hand. So sometimes that requires creativity and really to learn how to be flexible in those environments, and you have to train in those environments. That's why we're here."
Miller said leaving the practice in Shattuck was hard, but she decided to go into teaching so she can have a bigger impact on the shortage of rural physicians.
Doctor training A medical residency is the training new doctors go through after graduating from medical school in a specialty of their choice. A residency program gives both hands-on experience and technical training to resident doctors in order to prepare them to become fully licensed physicians. KCU's Family Medicine Residency Clinic in Neosho opened two years ago, and residents spend three years in the program. The residency clinic is scheduling new patients, infants through seniors. Appointments can be made by calling 417-347-3458.
