Rural Faculty Practice
School of Health Professions faculty are engaged in a variety of rural initiatives in partnership with many Kansas health care providers and facilities, statewide associations, and community stakeholders.
The school's faculty practice strategic plan includes key goals focusing on rural Kansas.
First, we aim to continue building innovative faculty practice partnerships with health care and community stakeholders in Kansas to improve access for specialized health care services.
Next, we plan to help enhance the rural health pipeline by fostering rural education experiences for our students at clinical sites where our faculty practice.
As a result, more health care professionals will train and remain in their communities. Overall, our faculty are working together to help improve the lives of Kansans.
Faculty in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition have an established history of delivering telehealth in nutrition.
The Department of Hearing and Speech operates an autism clinic in multiple rural settings coordinated through Center for Child Health and Development at KU Medical Center.
Seventeen current KU nurse anesthesia students hold full-time positions in rural locations including Lakin, Ark City, Winfield, El Dorado, Atchison, Parsons, Hays, and Salina.
The Department of Occupational Therapy Education offers telehealth through its clinics serving patients with ALS, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, and movement disorders. In south central Kansas, they provide telehealth services for behavioral issues to rural schools and school districts via a special Education cooperative (Coffeyville, Kansas). Department faculty are also building up the capacity to serve the special education needs for students in rural school districts in SE Kansas. This is accomplished via a partnership with the ANW Co-op (Chanute and Iola).
Many faculty in the School of Health Professions are passionate about dedicating their time to a variety of rural health initiatives. These efforts are in addition to paid faculty practice and provide a valuable service to rural communities in need of better access to specialized health care services.
Our faculty work with a variety of community organizations throughout Kansas including health clinics, health departments, critical access hospitals, and schools.
- The Department of Hearing and Speech provides hearing exams by faculty audiologists at the White Cloud Heath Fair (Indian Health Services). They also operate a rural outreach clinical team in the Dodge City, Kansas-area through the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program at KU Medical Center.
- The Department of Occupational Therapy Education is a member of the Healthcare Provider Council for Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. Its faculty serve as a resource for rural providers working with individuals with multiple sclerosis and also deliver services for a special education cooperative in southeast Kansas.
- Faculty in KU's physical therapy doctoral degree program provide continuing education and clinical instructor certification for rural clinics in multiple locations across Kansas.
- Faculty from KU's respiratory care bachelor's degree program provide telehealth asthma education to patients with asthma in collaboration with the School of Medicine across 55 counties in Kansas. This has helped school nurses, health departments, critical care access hospitals, and clinics in rural areas of the state.
- Occupational therapy, physical therapy, respiratory care, and speech-language pathology faculty serve individuals from across the region at the ALS and MDA clinics at KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.