KCU-Joplin graduates prepare to help address healthcare shortage

JOPLIN, Mo. (KOAM) - "Here I am fulfilling my dreams to be a doctor."

Graduates of the Kansas City University-Joplin campus are preparing to take the next steps in their medical journey.

For graduates like Dr. Tammy Wicke, this moment has been years in the making.

She helped raise her children while her husband was in medical school.

Now it's her turn to graduate.

"I have always had a heart for people," says Wicke. "I really just want to help people and I just felt like this was a way that I could really serve them."

More than 50% of this semester's graduates are becoming primary care doctors, an area that has reported shortages across the nation.

An estimated 30% of Americans don't have a primary care doctor  due to shortages according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.

The Vice President of KCU and administrator for the Joplin campus says these shortages are especially notable in the Four-State area.

"It's just that they are drawn to certain areas of interest, more than just primary care. It's changed gradually over the past few decades, but we're at a point now where it is becoming a crisis," says Dr. Richard Schooler. "We are struggling with the primary care shortage, especially in rural areas in this part of the country.”

Wicke says she is staying her hometown of Joplin and going into family medicine. She says she is proud to hopefully be able to help support the same community she grew up in."

"This goes back to the tornado we were in and the way the community came together after and during that tie. It just gave me a big heart for people," says Wicke. "So having lived in other places, there's just no people like the Midwest and Joplin. We love the people here."

The Kansas City University Joplin campus first started classes in 2017.

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