By Delisi                                       H.B. No. 1647

      75R5333 CAG-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to opportunities for family practice resident medical

 1-3     students to work in a public health setting.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5     SECTION 1.  Section 51.918(b), Education Code, is amended to read

 1-6     as follows:

 1-7           (b)  The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shall:

 1-8                 (1)  encourage and coordinate the creation or expansion

 1-9     of a rural preceptor program among medical schools, teaching

1-10     hospitals, nursing schools, and schools of allied health sciences;

1-11     and

1-12                 (2)  require family practice residency programs to

1-13     provide an opportunity for residents to have a one-month rotation

1-14     through:

1-15                       (A)  a rural setting; and

1-16                       (B)  a public health setting.

1-17           SECTION 2.  (a)  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.

1-18           (b)  The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shall

1-19     require a family practice residency program to conform to the

1-20     change in law made by this Act as soon as practicable after the

1-21     effective date of this Act without causing undue disruption in the

1-22     curriculum of a student in a family practice residency program on

1-23     the effective date.

1-24           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-1     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-2     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-3     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-4     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.