If there is anything Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship program’s Executive Director Wahnee Sherman hopes to communicate to college students, it’s that Mississippi needs more doctors in rural hospitals.

To this end, Sherman told the Rotary Club of Columbus on Tuesday that MRPS has funded more than $2 million in scholarships to medical school students since 2007.

“There are so many places in our state where there’s such a need for people to have good health care,” Sherman told club members at their weekly meeting at Lion Hills Center. “We’re sending those students out into those places to practice medicine. That’s really the purpose of this program. That’s what we’re doing every day.”

MRPS provides a $35,000 per year scholarship to each medical school student in the program. Those students are placed in residencies in rural hospitals — classified as having less than 10,000 people in their service area. After they graduate, they must agree to spend four years working at a rural hospital or clinic in Mississippi.

Of the more than 100 graduates of the program since its inception, Sherman said, 70 are still practicing in the state. This year, the program has 61 students in residencies and 85 students in medical school.

Additionally, 19 undergraduates who will be entering medical school have been accepted to the program.

After graduating medical school, MRPS recipients must enter a residency program in one of five primary care specialties: family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatric medicine, obstetrics and gynecology or pediatric care, Sherman said.

Sherman said that retention within the program is also very high, with only two students having ever backed out during the program.

Since the program started, Sherman and her team have worked hard to recruit as many students who show interest in the field. Part of that is correcting false ideas those recipients might have about working in a rural area.

“There’s just a misconception that if they go and work in a rural area … they’re going to make less money than if they work in an urban area, and that’s really not true,” Sherman said. “There are so many patients in rural Mississippi, that they’re actually going to make just as much money, if not more, working in a rural area.”