Fishin' for Physicians A SHARP hook baited with financial incentives.

• Author: Newman, Amy
• Position: HEALTHCARE

Adam McMahan knew from a young age he wanted to be a physician. He can pinpoint the exact moment he decided to practice medicine in a small rural town.

The Lexington, Kentucky native was leafing through magazines in his grandfather's office when he came across a photo essay in a 1948 issue of Life. Titled "Country Doctor," the article chronicled the author's life as a doctor in rural Colorado, treating everything from broken ribs to head traumas.

"I still remember the awe and visceral excitement from this moment," says McMahan, who now serves Haines and Klukwan as a family physician with the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC). "Since then, I knew that I wanted to practice medicine in a small mountain town."

After medical school, McMahan, who earned his undergraduate degree from UAF and remained "hooked on the regular sense of awe that came from the cultural diversity and ease of finding adventure in the Interior," returned to Alaska with a residency at the Alaska Family Medicine Residency--and with $280,000 in student loan debt.

Colleagues suggested he look into the SHARP Program, Alaska's healthcare workforce recruitment and retention program. The state-run program provides loan reimbursement or direct financial incentives to medical, dental, and behavioral health practitioners who commit to working in designated underserved regions.

"The SHARP program was designed on the state level to help get health practitioners to come and hopefully commit to places that were being underserved," says Dr. George Bird, a Fairbanks dentist and director of clinical services for the Tanana Chiefs Conference. "Loan repayment has kind of become one of the things you have to have to entice new graduates."

McMahan says when he began his post-residency job search, he only considered positions with a loan repayment option. SHARP is what ultimately enabled him to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a small-town doctor.

"Finding support for repaying this student loan debt played an outsized role in my family's search for opportunities in rural Alaska," he says. "it was SEARHC's relationship with the SHARP-1 program and the resulting student loan support that allowed our young family to make a financially responsible transition into my first job as a family physician in Haines."

Origins of SHARP

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic stretched Alaska's healthcare system to the limit, the industry struggled with a worker shortage. With no in-state medical or dental schools and few medical training programs--not to mention the high cost of living and geographical isolation that affects almost every Alaska industry--attracting and retaining qualified medical professionals has proven difficult.

The SHARP Program helps...