The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration recently awarded $2.1 million to the University of Wyoming Family Medicine Residency Program at Casper to expand primary care residency training in Wyoming.

The grant supports the creation of a rural training track to better prepare physicians who will practice in rural communities throughout the state.

The grant will extend over five years, with a focus on hands-on, full-scope training for family medicine physicians planning careers in rural medicine.

The rural training track is the first of its kind in Wyoming and will be centered in Thermopolis. Culminating nearly five years of preparation, the new program is a partnership between the UW Family Medicine Residency Program at Casper and Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital.

The first resident to enter into the rural training track will spend a “robust” first year at the residency program at Casper. This intern year is set up with a traditional block-rotation format to take advantage of training with specialists and all that Casper’s Wyoming Medical Center has to offer. The intern also receives experience in the Casper core program clinic — a federally qualified health center known as the Educational Health Center of Wyoming (EHCW), which serves as a safety net for the community. Afterward, the resident will live and train in Thermopolis during the remainder of the second and third years.

Megan Olson, a native of Cheyenne and a 2020 graduate of the Wyoming WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) Medical Education Program, started the rural training track July 1.

A first-year resident physician, Olson is no stranger to rural medicine in Wyoming. As part of the Wyoming WWAMI program, she completed many rotations in rural communities, including two month-long rotations in Thermopolis.

“I look forward to continuing to grow the program and advance my education so that I will be equipped to provide quality health care to residents in Wyoming’s rural communities,” Olson said.

She will be fully integrated into all aspects of medical care at the Red Rock Family Practice clinic in Thermopolis, as well as outreach clinics in Basin and Worland. Olson also will be involved with all of the medical services at Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital, from the emergency room to labor and delivery to the surgical suite.

With funding from the grant, Olson and other future rural training track residents also will receive training in the treatment of opioid use disorder and telehealth services.

The overall mission of the rural training track is to expand graduate medical education in Wyoming with a heightened focus on training for full-scope, rural family medicine to help meet the health care needs of rural Wyoming communities.

Dr. Travis Bomengen, the site director and chief medical officer with the rural training track in Thermopolis, said the aim is to “be the best and most sought-after rural training track in the United States.”

“The vision we have for our graduates,” he adds, “is to become highly skilled rural physicians.”

Continued challenges in keeping primary care physicians in Wyoming include lack of access to modern equipment, staffing budgets, patient/physician access and the lure of more attractive circumstances out of state.

“We want to support and grow rural training for Wyoming’s family medicine residents, medical students and other health care professional students,” Bomengen said. “We want to set a standard of excellence as Wyoming’s first rural training track graduate medical education program.”

To learn more about the Thermopolis rural training track, visit http://thermopolisrtt.com/.