The Hilo Medical Center Foundation has raised $17,000 in the first three weeks of a $1.5 million fundraising campaign to establish a program that aims to place more family practice doctors on the Neighbor Islands.

The Legislature in 2007 approved $4 million in state funding for the Rural Family Practice Residency Program. After withholding the first funding installment for fiscal year 2008, the Lingle administration announced in November it would not be releasing any of the money because of declining state revenues.

The University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine already was moving ahead with the program, using grants from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare and HMSA Foundation to develop a Big Island training site and to hire a medical director. But without state funding, supporters feared the residency program would fold.

In an attempt to keep the program on track, the Hilo Medical Center Foundation, the Hilo hospital, the Community Healthcare Alliance Taskforce, the UH medical school, and county government and business leaders launched the fundraising campaign.

Even before the campaign got under way, HMSA donated $150,000 to help equip the training clinic, in addition to the earlier $535,678 foundation grant. With that money in hand, the fundraising effort has set a goal of $50,000 by July 1, said Lori Rogers, executive director of the Hilo Medical Center Foundation. The campaign hopes to collect the remainder of the $1.5 million over the next two fiscal years.

The funds will pay for the first three years of the program, including 4,350 square feet of education and clinic space, five physician faculty members, and training for six medical students per year, for a total of 18.

Construction and furnishing of the clinic, equipped with eight exam rooms, is expected to be completed by early April, and residency program medical director Dr. Jim Donovan should begin seeing patients on a limited basis in April, Rogers said. Officials estimate the clinic, at 45 Mohouli St. in Hilo, will have 20,000 visits by patients annually.

A second teaching faculty member, Dr. Lucy Bucci, will join the program next month. The program must earn accreditation by December to be eligible to be matched with graduating medical students in March 2010.

If all goes well, the first class of six residents will begin training in July 2010, with subsequent classes in 2011 and 2012.

Many rural and Neighbor Island communities are experiencing a physician shortage as older doctors retire and others move away after finding it financially difficult to maintain their practice.

Medical school graduates typically are required to undergo three years of on-the-job residency training at hospitals. The UH rural residency program was based on research showing that at least 80 percent of doctors stay and work where where they complete their residency.

UH medical school officials said it's important that medical students train on location so they can become comfortable in the community and understand the challenges of working in areas where there are fewer specialists.

Initial plans call for rotating family-medicine graduates through Hilo Medical Center and later expanding the program to Maui, Kaua'i and Moloka'i.