Effectiveness of the AHEC concept in Colorado

The SEARCH program (Colorado's area health education program) is designed to alleviate the maldistribution in health manpower by recruiting new professionals to underserved areas through student/resident rotations and to retain those professionals already there by providing accessible continuing education. Data obtained on SEARCH during the first two years of operation are encouraging. Nearly 75 percent of rural physicians practicing in self-assessed areas of need wanted contact with medical students, and the number of University of Colorado medical graduates taking residencies in Colorado increased dramatically. The retention rate of physicians in Colorado was 97.2 percent during this two-year period for those physicians serving as medical student preceptors, whereas it would have been expected to be 83.5 percent based on 1979 data.