Sarah Carricaburu slipped her sleek new iPhone into her purse for the day. With no signal here deep in the woods, it's useless. She swiveled away from her desktop computer, which can't access the Internet, and glanced at the manila folders of patient records neatly stacked on a shelf by nurses.
"I grew up in the age of electronic medical records," said Carricaburu, 33, a primary care physician who was raised in the Washington suburbs. "Coming here was like stepping back in time. I would like to stay in a community healthcare setting, but here I didn't feel like I had the resources to do my job. You're cut off."Carricaburu's choice of whether to stay or go is not just about her own career satisfaction. Her 12 colleagues at the Southern Albemarle Family Practice have a vested interest in her staying on, as the clinic's director and its one full-time physician, beyond the three years that she is under a contract with the federal government that will help pay off school loans. She is also a test case for the Obama administration's goal, under the new healthcare law, to bring thousands of young primary care doctors to underserved areas such as this unincorporated town of 1,200 -- and keep them there.
But after facing decisions similar to the one Carricaburu is weighing, several young doctors who were interviewed said they are struggling with whether to spend a career in rural settings. Experts said they expect retention to be a problem.
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