Oklahoma Administrative Code
Title 540 - Health Care Workforce Training Commission
Chapter 15 - Internship and Residency Program
Section 540:15-1-1 - Purpose

Section 697.1 of Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes indicates that the legislature recognizes that there is a need to upgrade the availability of health care services for people of Oklahoma, and thus, there is a need to improve the balance of health care workforce distribution in the state both by type of practice and geographic location. Furthermore, the Legislature recognizes the need to accommodate the increasing number of graduates from the medical and osteopathic colleges of Oklahoma by retaining their services as practicing physicians in the state and by attracting graduates from schools outside the state. Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to increase the number of internship and residency programs offered for the training of physicians throughout the state through the sharing by the state of the costs of such internships and residencies with hospitals and other clinical residency training establishments. These programs shall be designed primarily to emphasize the training of primary health care and family practice physicians and to develop workforce programs to service directly the rural and nonmetropolitian areas of the state or other areas of severe need. [70:697.1]