It’s an agricultural community of about 900 people, located about an hour from the nearest Walmart, two hours from a Starbucks, and three hours from a big city, Wichita. Like the San Joaquin Valley, Anderson’s corner of Kansas doesn’t naturally attract scores of physicians. That’s why I listened with particular interest to an NPR report earlier this year about Benjamin Anderson, CEO of a health center in rural, southwest Kansas. Where the recommended number of primary-care physicians is 60 to 80 per 100,000 people, in the San Joaquin Valley that number is only 45 per 100,000, according to a 2010 California HealthCare Foundation report. Not surprisingly, the Valley has far fewer primary-care physicians and specialists than are recommended by nationally recognized benchmarks. And it has the worst air quality in the country. It’s one of the poorest regions in California, which hardly makes it lucrative for new doctors looking to pay off student loans. It’s one of the state’s sickest regions, with high rates of obesity and diabetes and an epidemic of asthma. It takes a special kind of doctor to practice in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

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