Tamera Ahner of workforce development at Hidalgo Medical Services spoke at the Legislative Forum about HMS efforts toward increasing the health-care work force in the area.

"We've been addressing work force development shortages and have stepped up our pace," Ahner said.

She showed a photo of a student at Animas High School whose goal is to become the first doctor in Cotton City.

She spoke about the Frontier and Rural Workforce Development organization, FORWARD NM, of which Gila Regional Medical Center, University of New Mexico, Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, and the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health are partners with HMS.

"We want to enhance the number of local health-care workers in rural areas," Ahner said. "We aim to address short and long-term health-care shortage, through the Frontier and Rural Training Program. We want to fund training hubs in Hidalgo and Catron counties and beyond."

She reported that New Mexico is 49^th in the county per capita in dentists and 32^nd for physicians.

"We are short 400-600 full-time employees in primary care," Ahner said. "And about 1,000 short in nurses."

Those licensed in New Mexico number 7,196, with 33 percent of them practicing outside the state, 53 percent providing care to patients in the state, and 2 percent, providing non-patient related care.

"We have a grow-your-own model, not only in southwest New Mexico, but beyond," Ahner said. "We are encouraging local students and helping them with funding resources to keep them local."

She said out of 300 high school students surveyed, 35 were interested in becoming M.D.s, 13 interested in mental health, 20 interested in being a medical dentist, with other interested in careers allied to health care.

"We now have more dental and pediatric residents at HMS," Ahner said. "Nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and master's in public health workers are also welcomed. We have students who want to be volunteers, and we need mentors who want to mentor younger students."

Year-to-date, HMS had had 68 rotations from seven different disciplines.

Hamilton asked how the group approaches students.

"We have great support from the schools," Ahner said. "They have training in Lordsburg and Animas in a Youth Power Program. The health careers piece is added to the program. We are about to launch a Health Careers Club at La Plata. It will be hands-on in a 12-week program, with mentors coming in. The students will also attend career and health fairs. We are welcoming students into FORWARD NM.

"We introduced the volunteer program to allow students to try a career on for size," Ahner continued. "We also work with Western New Mexico University for a summer camp. We will be at Cobre, Silver and Cliff high schools to show them how to sustain and let them grow the program."

She said they have discovered that students are coming into the program academically impaired, especially in math. WNMU Professor Zenaido "Tres" Camacho has developed a four-year calculus program to put into the high schools.

Hamilton asked if the Youth Power Program were an after-school activity.

Ahner said it is actually a part of the school program, and HMS will have in the spring a vocational teacher, who will also run the Health Careers Club at La Plata.

Hamilton gave accolades to HMS because "I think you're working on helping families to not break the bank."

"We're helping families understand that they have to let their child go and how special their child is," Ahner replied.

Martinez said HMS has excellent thoughts and ideas on attracting students to rural areas, and asked if there is any special curriculum.

Ahner said HMS has a program on the secondary level and is one they are looking to implement at La Plata. The evidence-based curriculum was developed in Albuquerque.

"We're looking for dollars to implement the program, but we have enough to provide the club at no cost to the schools," Ahner said. "We can get statistics to you showing how well the curriculum works.

"We're going beyond the high school level," Ahner continued. "We're showing those completing their study in medical fields how to find tax credits to serve in rural areas, but the credits are being reconsidered.

"We are looking at extending our outreach to various disciplines to help them repay loans or offer scholarships, especially when it comes to primary-care training."

HMS is trying to train for rural health care, but also how to recruit and retain health-care workers.

"If we get them involved in the communities, they catch the bug," Ahner said. "Now we have people calling us asking for training spots. HMS fronts the financing for these rotations. We have some funding on the federal level, but we're at capacity. We would like to see an increase on the Department of Health line item for training."

The next article will be on the Grant County Community Health Council presentation.