Matthew Sommer
Enhancing Medical Interest in Rural Communities
Mentor: Sarah Franklin, PHD
Department: Rural and Underserved Utah Training Experience & Regional Affairs
Background
The physician shortage in rural areas is a critical concern, exacerbated by barriers such as lower socioeconomic status, lack of mentors, and geographic isolation from healthcare practice sites. To address these issues, we have been conducting Rural Outreach Programs (ROPs) that include medical lectures and hands-on activities, such as heart dissections and point-of-care ultrasound, to spark interest in medical careers among rural students.
Methods
We conducted a comprehensive literature review to understand the need for rural physicians and identify factors that make programs effective in promoting medical careers in these areas. We then compared these findings to the structure and implementation of our ROP trips.
Results
Our ROP trips target rural communities, which we hypothesize will increase the likelihood of participants returning as physicians in the future. These trips provide engaging experiences and mentorship, both of which are identified as critical components of effective outreach programs. However, our current approach selects communities somewhat randomly rather than based on specific measures of rural need. Additionally, we lack a systematic way to track and evaluate the long-term impact of our efforts.
Conclusions
Our program successfully incorporates key elements such as mentorship and hands-on experiences that shows to be an effective method in promoting medical careers among rural students. Moving forward, we plan to refine our approach by selecting outreach locations based on rural need and developing a tracking system to assess the efficacy of our efforts in increasing medical career interest among rural students.
