November 14, 2023
New Funding Opportunity – Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) Program – HRSA-24-022
The Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) Program provides start-up funding to new rural residency programs, including rural track programs, to address physician workforce shortages in rural communities in:
- Family Medicine
- Internal Medicine
- Psychiatry
- General Surgery
- Preventive Medicine
- obstetrics and gynecology
The purpose of the Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) Program program is to improve and expand access to health care in rural areas by developing new, sustainable rural residency programs, including rural track programs (RTPs) to address the physician workforce shortages and challenges faced by rural communities.
For the purposes of this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), rural residency programs are accredited physician residency programs that train residents in rural training sites for greater than 50 percent of their total time in residency, and focus on producing physicians who will practice in rural communities. This includes programs that meet ACGME RTP Designation, including both new programs and permanent complement increases for new rural training site(s) for existing programs.
There are two pathways for this program:
- General Primary Care and High Need Specialty Pathway
- Maternal Health and Obstetrics Pathway.
General Primary Care and High Need Specialty Pathway – supports the development of new rural residency training programs that focus on training to meet significant rural health needs.
Eligible specialties:
- Family medicine
- Internal medicine
- Preventive medicine
- Psychiatry
- General surgery
Maternal Health and Obstetrics Pathway – supports the development of new rural residency programs with a focus on training to provide high quality, evidence-based maternity care and obstetrical services in rural areas.
Eligible specialties:
- Obstetrics-gynecology
- Family medicine with enhanced obstetrical training
- Enhanced obstetrical residency training must provide family medicine residents with extensive clinical experience in comprehensive maternity care, as outlined in ACGME’s program requirements, including dedicated training on labor and delivery and operative obstetrics.
- These programs must have faculty with clinical expertise to prepare family medicine residents for the independent practice of obstetrics in rural communities.
Eligible Applicants Include:
- Rural Hospitals
- Graduate Medical Education Consortiums, including:
- universities
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities
- Tribal Organizations
Application closes February 12, 2024