Urish elected to state board

RANGELY | Rangely District Hospital (RDH) physician Abbie Urish has been elected to the state board for the Colorado Academy of Family Practice. Urish was inaugurated at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs in April. The board is the largest lobbying agency in the state for family practitioners. “Getting elected to the board is a neat honor, as most if not all the other board members are on the front range in urban practices/groups. It’s good publicity for our hospital and community to be represented, so while I’m not looking forward to committee meeting days six times a year—it’ll be a good opportunity to lobby for rural hospital funding,” she said. “I think that rural hospitals/clinics need better representation at the state level and I think I would add a needed perspective to the board. As part of my current position as Chief of Staff, I have become increasingly concerned with sources of revenue in the rural health models of sustainability and want to become more involved in policies to promote access to health for those of us outside the major urban centers.”
Urish and husband Dr. Ken Sutton joined RDH in the fall of 2015. She went into family medicine after having multiple health problems as a child. “I felt an obligation to the return the good care I had received and loved the opportunity to do it in so many settings in rural health: emergency room, clinic, inpatient, home visits and extended care. I’m from Wyoming and so rural health access is something I want to see sustained for those of us living in small town America,” she said. “I love the intellectual drive to handle everything from newborn to geriatric medicine and being a part of a multi-generational family’s health.”