Maine Med gets $726K for rural medical training

Maine Senators Susan Collins and Angus King

Courtesy / Offices of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King Maine Medical Center will receive nearly $726 million in federal funding to establish rural residencies, Maine's U.S. senators announced Tuesday.

Write a Comment

By Renee Cordes

Maine Medical Center has been awarded $725,933 in federal money through a program that seeks to expand the physician workforce in rural areas.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, announced the award in a joint news release.

The funding was awarded through the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Rural Residency Planning and Development Program.

Although Portland-based Maine Medical Center did not issue a separate announcement, a spokesman told Mainebiz that the full grant amount will be used to create a residency training program in psychiatry at an affiliated hospital, Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport.

Pen Bay, part of the Coastal Healthcare Alliance and the MaineHealth system, is the largest community hospital in midcoast Maine.

The funding comes as Pen Bay embarks on a campus expansion with the addition of a 41,500-square-foot, two-story medical office building, which broke ground last month. The award also comes amid an ongoing need for more medical services in rural Maine.

“As one of the oldest and most rural states in the country, Maine faces significant challenges in providing access to high-quality health care,” Collins and King said in Tuesday’s release. "This important funding will help Maine Medical Center expand the reach of their health care programs through the establishment of new rural residency programs.”

The federal program, administered by HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy and Bureau of Health Workforce, is part of a multi-year effort to expand the physician workforce in rural areas through residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine and psychiatry.

Award recipients include rural hospitals, community health centers, health centers operated by the Indian Health Service, Indian tribes or tribal organizations and medical schools.