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Dr. Lisa Dodson (left), dean of the Medical College of Wisconsin Central Wisconsin Campus, receives an endowment medal from Sentry chairman, president and CEO Peter McPartland on Monday, December 9, 2019, at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. Sentry has pledged $2 million to the MCW Central Wisconsin Campus to provide an endowment for the deanship and expanding training programs for local medical students.Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin(Photo: Tork Mason, Tork Mason/USA Today NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the number of students attending school at the medical college.

STEVENS POINT - The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a $2 million gift fromthe Sentry Insurance Foundation to help the school train more doctorsfor rural residents.

It's a gift Sentry hopes will inspire other local companies and leaders to support the work going on at the college's Wausau campus, whichistraining physicians and psychiatrists with a goal of keeping them in Wisconsin's less-urban areas where there'sa shortage of providers.

Leaders from Sentry and the college gathered at SentryWorld in Stevens Point on Monday to announce the gift,the largest ever given to the Medical College of Wisconsin-Central Wisconsin.The gift creates the Sentry Deanshipat the Medical College of Wisconsin's Wausau campus and aims to break down barriers in creating new physicians in non-urban areas.

The three-year-old medical campus graduated its first class of students earlier this year. The college admitted its first students in 2016 in Wausau, becoming the first medical school in the region.The 13 graduates have now been assignedtothree-year residencies, and seven of those doctors in training are from central Wisconsin.

Seventy-six students are now enrolled at the medical college's central Wisconsin campus. An additional nine people are training in the campus'psychiatry residency program at sitesthroughout central Wisconsin.

Ann Lucas, executive director of the Sentry Insurance Foundation, said the endowment signifies the start of a long-term partnership between the company and the college that may lay the groundwork for future joint efforts to address rural healthcare gaps.Lisa Dodson is the founding dean of the Medical College of WisconsinCentral Wisconsin campus and her deanship position was renamed after the insurance company.

"I think their whole model of integrating their medical students into the community is genius," Lucas said.

Dodson's endowed dean position is the institution's highest honor and is the first such position in the college's history, said Dr. John Raymond, Medical College of Wisconsin president and CEO.

The money will further the college's outreach efforts to recruit students in rural and underrepresented communities, especially in central Wisconsin, Dodson said. She said such work would involve more staff, time and resources dedicated to outreach and building community relationships.Her hope is to make access to the medical college easier andbreak down barriers for rural, first-generation college students, people of color and low-income students.

RELATED: Wausau med school's first class starts July

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The college will also seek to help physicians overcome burnout, mental health struggles and other issues that threaten to end careers early by better connecting each step of a future doctor's education and making sure they have a support system, Dodson said.

The focus on training rural doctorscomes from the growing divide between urban and non-urban areas in the number of physicians practicing and the number of rural places available for them to train, she said. Where someone grows up and then where they trainto become a physician heavily influences where they will ultimately practice.

Anew article in Health Affairs, an academic journal, reports on a 15-year decline in rural medical students, withless than 5% of all incoming students in 2017 coming from rural areas. The phenomenon is worse among people of color with rural backgrounds.

"The closer to home you go to school, you maintain those community relationships, (and) the more likely you are to end up practicing in that community," Dodsonsaid.

The college's strategy translates to defining the career path for students early on while in high school or undergraduate studies and well after they're practicing in local communities, she said. The donation from Sentry will strengthen that plan.

"Part of this pipeline is setting people up with partnerships in rural areas, not throwing someone up in the Upper Peninsula (of Michigan) and saying, 'Good luck',"she said.

The structure of the endowment will allow the medical college creativity in bringing on community partners, health care systems and other partners in the future, Dodson said.

Sentry Insurance CEO Pete McPartland said in an interview with the Stevens Point Journal that the donation represents one of the best things the company's foundation hasdone because it invests in education, quality of life and workforce development in the Stevens Point and central Wisconsin area.

Dr. John Raymond (right), president and CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin, shakes hands with Sentry chairman, president and CEO Peter McPartland on Monday, December 9, 2019, at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. Sentry has pledged $2 million to the MCW Central Campus to provide an endowment for the deanship and expanding training programs for local medical students.Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin(Photo: Tork Mason, Tork Mason/USA Today NETWORK-Wisconsin)

"We are extremely committed to this area," McPartland said. "This is where we have been for over 100 years and this is where well be."

Raymondsaid the donation emphasizes the importance of local communitiestaking ownership of the new medical school.

"The main purpose of the campus is our idea to use local talent and resources, which is in abundance. If we do that, and make medical education affordable, then we are going to deal with the severe maldistribution of physicians," Raymond said.

The donation, Dodson said, makes Stevens Point the first community outside of Wausau to embrace the Medical College of Wisconsin's central Wisconsin campus. Raymond said Sentry's stamp of approval on the school'swork is gratifying.

"To have an organization like Sentry back the efforts of the college is humbling and a sign that something is going well," Raymondsaid. "Its just been so gratifying tosee the community embrace this ideal and make it real."

Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.

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Sentry gives $2 million to Medical College of Wisconsin's Wausau campus as it trains rural doctors - Stevens Point Journal