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visit their community. The hospital is paying the coat of moving the two physicians and is providing them with rent-free housing for a year. The hospital is also building a new office building for the physicians which they will receive rent-free for a year.
Mr. Fisher said that the community of Windsor financed a trip for a physician and his family to come from California for a visit and that this cost the town $1100. Windsor does not know yet whether or not the trip paid off.
In addition to caring for the sick and providing preventive medical services, family physicians also contribute to the economy of small communities. Drugstores have difficulty existing in areas without physicians; industry will not locate in communities that lack medical care. People going to other areas to see physicians tend to shop in those areas and spend their money there.
Mr. Fisher suggested that greater emphasis be placed on family practice in medical schools, pointing out the advantages of family practice and giving the positive side of living and practicing in small communities. He stated that providing an exposure to medical students of family practice through the preceptorship program of the Virginia Academy of General Practice and by rotating medical students to community hospitals should be promoted. He complemented the Medical College of Virginia for establishing a Department of Family Practice and appointing a full-time professor of family practice. He expressed the hope that the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia would establish a similar full-time department with a full-time family physician as its chairman.
Mr. Fisher pointed out that at the present time there are 210 opportunities for family physicians in Virginia listed with the Virginia Council on Health and Medical Care. To fill these opportunities there are only 40 family physicians listed with the council as being available and some of these will be in training programs for another eighteen months.
The Virginia Council on Health and Medical Care is a private voluntary.' organization^ which, depehds upon contributions for its support.
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