The annual Doctors Fair at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine provides opportunities for downstate Illinois medical facilities to recruit physicians.

The SIU School of Medicine Doctors Fair held last Friday in Springfield, again brought together the School's residents and medical students with recruiters from nearly three dozen hospitals and clinics from throughout the state. John Record, assistant dean of rural and alumni affairs for the school, says SIU's fair provides a number of benefits to Illinois health care recruiters:

SOUND BITE: ". . . the primary benefit for ah physicians is that within it's a very convenient, and yet a very personal way of exploring practice opportunities instead of having to drive around the state, put on a lot of miles and take a lot of time, you can very quickly talk with people from organizations from the southern part of the state to the very northern part of the state."

Record says many health care recruiters return to the Doctors Fair year-after-year because they continue to have a need for physicians. The Doctors Fair also gives recruiters opportunities to develop relationships with medical residents, who will be starting their practices within the next few years, as well as medical students.

SOUND BITE: "For medical students, it's a it's a different sort of game because they're so far away from practicing it really is a good way for students to sort of figure out what kind of specialties are in demand so as they go through medical school, and get later on and have to make a speciality choice, they at least have some idea what the marketplace is looking for."

Begun by the School of Medicine in 1979, the Doctors Fair is part of the School's response to fulfilling its mandate to help Illinois meet its need for physicians.