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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Loan Forgiveness Brings Doctors to CO's Underserved

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Monday, November 8, 2010   

THORNTON, Colo. - Think "Northern Exposure" -- although unlike the old television series, Colorado doctors don't have to go to the wilds of Alaska to get forgiveness for their student loans. The Colorado Health Service Corps (CHSC) will pay up to $150,000 for a student loan, if a medical practitioner agrees to work in a designated high-need practice for at least three years.

Dr. Joshua Messner, a primary care physician, says the program allowed him to follow his childhood dream and become a family doctor at Clinica Family Health Services, just outside of Denver in urban Thornton.

"Med school debt is really tremendous and overwhelming. Without considering loan repayment, community health and other clinics look much less appealing than private practice or a large group practice."

The CHSC awards are branching out beyond doctors to also support nurses, physician assistants, dentists, dental hygienists and behavioral health providers over the next three years. Up to 1 million Coloradans live where doctors and other medical resources are few and far between.

Colleen Church is program officer for the Colorado Health Foundation. Church says they provided the nearly $6.5 million grant to the CHSC because community health facilities in rural or low-income urban areas often have a hard time attracting and retaining qualified doctors.

"For the community itself, it provides some certainty in the continuity of care. They know they're going to have a primary care physician who's committing to being part of that community for three years and likely to continue in that community for years past the obligation period."

Messner hopes other young medical students can learn about -- and benefit from -- loan forgiveness and community health center work.

"This new state program helps connect you to a little bit larger vision of really trying to get good people into the right places to meet the need."

It's a competitive program: Between 2008 and 2010 the Colorado Health Foundation alone received 112 applications and made just 44 awards.




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