Nearly 80 percent of rural America is "medically underserved," according to U.S. government statistics — being home to 20 percent of the population but fewer than 10 percent of its doctors — and the situation is worsening because of aging physicians, according to news reports.
Health experts refer to the phenomenon as "the gray wave" affecting rural doctors, The Washington Post reports.
Such medical practitioners average about three years older than urban doctors, though half are beyond 50 and more than a quarter are over 60.
"Health officials predict the number of rural doctors will decline by 23 percent over the next decade as the number of urban doctors remains flat," the Post reports.
For instance, the report cites Ed Garner, who has been practicing rural family medicine for eight years in Van Horn, Texas, east of El Paso in the western part of the state.
Overall, he has been practicing for 41 years.
The only medical center in the area is Culberson Hospital, which serves three remote counties spanning more than 11,000 square miles, about the size of Maryland.
"A wild place of last resort," was how Garner described his territory to the Post.
He generally averages about 20 patients a day, with the help of a nursing staff and two physician assistants, but Garner saw patients from 36 states and 68 Texas counties in the last year.
"For every person in every kind of medical trouble, the true last resort was him," the Post reports.
However, Garner takes it all in stride — treating patients' "insect bites, their addictions, their muscle aches, and sometimes also their loneliness.
"My door's always open for walk-ins," he often told patients, the Post reports. "There's no shame in coming just to talk."
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