Rudolph Rosick, an assistant professor of family and community medicine, said changes to health care would affect medical students’ employment opportunities.

“If there is greater funding for primary care, hopefully we will see more students going into it,” he said.

Primary care includes family practice, internal medicine and preventative medicine. Income for these fields has been decreasing, leading fewer students to take interest in them, Rosick said.

“If a student is $200,000 in debt, going into the primary care field, where the pay is going down, doesn’t make much sense right now,” he said.

In addition to the possible changes to medical school trends, the Ingham County Health Department already has benefitted from Obama’s focus on health care. The department will receive $1.3 million from the federal stimulus package, spokesman Marcus Cheatham said.

The department plans to use the money to hire nine additional health care providers and 12 supporting staff, which would allow 5,000 more low-income community members to receive care, Cheatham said.

“We have 90 to 120 days to come up with a staffing plan and where these people are going to work,” he said. “We’re hitting the ground running, and we’re scrambling — but that’s the whole intent of the stimulus package.”

MSU students won’t necessarily be affected by the change because they have access to Olin Health Center on campus, but Ingham County Health Department has jurisdiction over Olin, Curtis said.

But Obama’s plans only can be achieved with collaboration, said James Curtis, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health.

“It’s going to take a lot of people to be on the same page,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge.”