Each winter, as most students head home for rest and celebration, a group from the University of Louisville School of Medicine returns home for something deeper. Through the Trover Rural Campus’ Home for the Holidays program, these students spend their winter break back in the small towns and clinics that first inspired them to pursue medicine. They stay with family, shadow hometown physicians, reconnect with mentors and rediscover what drew them to rural health care in the first place.  

It's a homecoming defined by gratitude. For students, it’s a chance to thank the physicians and communities that supported them. For rural practitioners, it’s a reminder that their example continues to shape the next generation of healers. 

“Many of these students grew up in small towns where access to care can be limited,” said William Crump, associate dean of the Trover Rural Health campus in Madisonville. “When they come home during the holidays, they’re reminded of why they started this journey in the first place.” 

The Home for the Holidays experience was created in 2001 to help rural students maintain that connection throughout medical school. As Crump explains, students often spend their first two years studying in Louisville’s urban setting – a vital part of their medical education, but one that can lead to what he described as “urban disruption,” a gradual drift away from their rural roots. To counter that, the program offers a three half-day immersion during winter break, pairing students with physicians in their home communities. 

“It’s not just about clinical exposure,” Crump said. “It’s about helping students keep their sense of place. Rural medicine is as much about community as it is care.” 

That sense of place has proven powerful. Nearly 90% of participating students expressed plans to practice in a rural area, and half chose family medicine residencies – a crucial specialty in addressing Kentucky’s rural health care needs, and the only one that distributes as the U.S population does, with 20% in rural areas. The model’s success has drawn attention nationwide as a replicable way to sustain the rural physician pipeline, winning a national awardfor educational innovation in 2020. 

For the students, the impact often goes beyond data. Many describe walking through the doors of their hometown clinics and immediately feeling the familiarity of family, friends and community. They see the physicians who cares  for their parents or grandparents, the nurses who know every patient by name and the patients who remember them as children. It’s an experience that brings gratitude and purpose into sharper focus. 

“It reinforces the appreciation they already feel toward the communities that supported them,” Crump said. “But it also builds a sense of responsibility; an understanding that these communities need them to come back.” 

That mutual gratitude – the exchange between student and mentor, between physician and hometown – lies at the heart of Home for the Holidays. In rural Kentucky, where access to health care can mean driving hours to the nearest provider, physicians volunteer their time to teach these students who may one day fill that critical gap. The students, in turn, bring curiosity, optimism and a renewed sense of purpose.  

As a past participant reflected, “I believe practicing medicine in a small town can be an incredibly unique and rewarding experience. There’s a sensation of heightened responsibility, as many patients are likely to be friends and family.” 

That sense of responsibility carries an even greater weight today. Across rural Kentucky, access to care remains at serious risk as hospitals face financial strain and physician shortages continue to grow. In some counties, the closure of a single hospital can mean the loss of vital emergency services and the nearest care moving hours away. Programs like Home for the Holidays help safeguard the future of those communities by inspiring students to return home and build sustainable access to health care where it’s needed most.  

It’s a cycle that sustains care in communities where even one new family physician can transform the health of thousands. That perspective, Crump noted, is exactly what Home for the Holidays hopes to inspire – a recognition that rural medicine is deeply personal, rooted in relationships and that sense of place that go far beyond the exam room.  

As Thanksgiving approaches and weobserve Rural Health Awareness Month, the University of Louisville School of Medicine celebrates the students, preceptors and community partners who make Home for the Holidays possible. Their shared dedication reflects gratitude in its most meaningful form: appreciation that inspires action.  

This season, Crump’s message is clear: the best way to honor rural communities is to invest in them. By mentoring a student, opening a practice for shadowing or supporting rural training programs, physicians and alumni can help ensure that gratitude grows into opportunity, and that every Kentuckian – no matter their ZIP code – has access to compassionate, high-quality care. 

To learn more about the Trover Rural Campus and our Home for the Holidays program, visit ourTrover Rural Track admissions site.