Training Florida's Next Generation of Country Doctors
With full scholarships from Doctors' Memorial Hospital in Perry, three Florida State University medical students are setting out to do something no one else from their hometown has done in 50 years-earn a medical degree and return to Perry to practice.
Joda Lynn, a third generation Perry native, was the first student admitted to the FSU College of Medicine. Lynn graduated from Medical School in 2005, followed in 2006 by Shannon Price and in 2007 Joseph Plum will graduate. Joda is currently in residency in Florida and Shannon in residency in South Carolina.
Doctors' Memorial Hospital CEO said the hospital is investing about $60,000 per student over four years of 
medical school. In return, the students will be obligated to practice in Perry for at least four years.
Perry is located in Taylor County, one of 21 Florida counties that are federally designated as medically underserved, primarily because of a lack of physicians.
"We are taking a long-term approach to the problem, and that is to recruit our own, train our own, and bring them back here" the CEO said.
For Lynn, the scholarship will make it easier for him to pursue a goal he'd already set out for himself - to practice medicine in his hometown.
"What can be better than helping the people in your community, and then in return for doing that, they're going to come back and help make the community better? I think it's a good investment for the hospital to being in good physicians, and a good investment for the communityto ensure the quality of their health care in the future."
Perry Native and retired physician John H. Parker MD, who was Lynn's childhood doctor, set up his practice in 1954. Every other physician who has practiced there since has come from somewhere else.
