Doctor without borders : he's a physician who covers huge stretches of rural Texas -- and whose work provides key lessons about the fate and future of rural health care in America

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2011-12

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Dr. Jim Luecke, a rural family physician in Alpine, Texas, is one of six doctors responsible for thousands of patients across a sprawling 25,000 square foot remote region of the state. He is a community doctor that travels between three towns to treat patients with various illnesses, injuries and income levels. But his type of general medicine is a dying practice in Texas, especially in rural areas. Texas, with a primary care and family physician shortage likely to get worse over the next several years, faces continued obstacles in providing access to quality healthcare in some of its most isolated areas. Luecke, while he embodies some of the challenges that come with practicing rural medicine, is in some ways an exception to those challenges.

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