Story by Rebecca Spezzano

Anna Werr knows the critical role health professionals play in rural areas.

Werr grew up in Shelbyville, Missouri, a town of around 500 people in the northeast part of the state. When she came to the University of Missouri for college, she always intended to land closer to home after graduation.

“I knew I would love to gain a skill from somewhere like Mizzou and take it back to a rural area to help people,” Werr said.

Werr gained those skills in the Diagnostic Medical Ultrasound program in the Mizzou College of Health Sciences. After graduating from the ultrasound program in August, she moved to Memphis, Missouri, to begin her career.

She now works as a sonographer at Scotland County Hospital, which Werr said has about 25 beds for patients. Although the facility is small, her impact in the community is huge.

“I feel like the importance of my job in the rural place is providing a service,” she said. “Nobody likes driving two hours to get an ultrasound.”

Now, Werr uses the skills she developed in the College of Health Sciences to aid people in rural northeast Missouri. She credits her time at Mizzou for making her a well-rounded health professional.

“The ultrasound program really prepares you to work in all sorts of settings,” she said.

Mizzou’s Diagnostic Medical Ultrasound program is the only one in the state in which all graduates learn to perform abdominal, OB-GYN, vascular, and cardiac ultrasound examinations. This prepares graduates to work in rural settings, where fewer health care providers must meet diverse patient needs.

During her senior year of college, Werr had the opportunity to gain clinical education in sites across Missouri. She said learning in places like Moberly, Lake of the Ozarks and Boone Hospital in Columbia provided excellent preparation for her current job as she was able to see a variety of skills in action.

“Boone has a really good breast center,” she said. “I got to see what that was all about and learn a lot from the sonographers there. And then I’m scanning breast here, so I’m bringing skills from that clinical experience at Boone back to here.”

Werr does more than breast scans at Scotland County Hospital, though. In a single day, she might handle everything from a heart to a kidney to an obstetric ultrasound.

Werr said it’s great to know that the work she does is so important — she said ultrasound acts as the “doctor’s eyes.” She encourages other young health care professionals to seek work in rural hospitals, as it offers endless opportunities to grow.

“It’s never boring,” she said. “I’m doing everything that I learned at school, which I think is so cool.”