 |
| Doing More With Less: Health Care in Rural Texas Texas has the country's largest rural population and its residents are, on average, older, poorer, and in worse health than their urban counterparts. The Falls Community Hospital and Rural Health Clinic faces the challenges of providing adequate health care to its patients in the rural community of Falls County, Texas. Dr. Fedro, a native son of Marlin, Texas, returned home from a flourishing Dallas practice to the town of 6,000 to provide home visits to a community with no public transportation. “I’d challenge any doctor to pick a few patients, and go see them in their home, in their environment, and to see how they live and what they can afford to provide for themselves. It changes the way you treat your patients.” Dr. Fedro and his assistant travel over a 40-mile radius on dirt roads and through cattle guards to reach people in Falls County, like Maehelen Willis, 84, who can’t make it into the clinic. |