Ashland (Kan.) Health Center, a rural community hospital, is trying to draw physicians by offering the unorthodox benefit of paid time off for missionary work in other countries, according to a Washington Post report.
The offer is not limited to physicians, however. All employees get eight paid weeks off each year to use for volunteer work or any other purpose they choose — not strictly mission work. The philosophy behind the benefit is that physicians who are interested in helping the sick in developing nations might be “content” to work in a rural environment that faces some of the same challenges, according to the report.
The recruitment model was developed with faculty at the Via Christi medical residency program in Wichita, Kan. The program’s recruiter, Scott Stringfield, MD, says more medical students are expressing interest in mission work in developing nations and inner cities. In 2011, 33 percent of applicants to the program indicated interest in volunteer work compared to 16 percent from 2010, according to the report.
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