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Earlier this week Governor Billl Lee signed Senate Bill 781 into law at the Tennessee state capitol. Senator Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City) and Representative John Holsclaw (R-Elizabethton) as well as area physicians were in attendance. Crowe carried the bill through the Senate in this year’s legislative session. The new law incentivizes physicians in residency training to provide medical health services in health resource shortage areas. The new law establishes the Family Medicine Student Loan Repayment grant program. Managed by the Department of Health, the program will provide up to $40,000 per year in grants for up to five years to residents who commit to providing medical services in a Tennessee health resource shortage area for at least five years following residency training in family medicine. In order to be eligible for the grant, applicants must graduate from an accredited medical school and be actively enrolled in a Tennessee family medicine residency program.