Rural Medicine Interest Group

[lilmo]

Hola! I'm an M3 at the University of Kansas. We're in the process of getting a Rural Medicine Interest Group (RMIG) off the ground - so exciting! Does anyone have any suggestions for our group, links to great resources, advice, etc?

I really wish this group would have been around when I started. It seems as if Rural Medicine gets lost somewhere during the first two years of medical school.

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[boboli]

I agree that rural medicine gets lost during the first two years. In a university setting it can get lost during the clinical years as well . . . not too mention stomped upon and verbally assaulted by those who have never been outside of academia. . . sad
Advice for starting a rural interst group . . . Some of your best resources might be community private practice groups from rural areas. A lot of these docs are excited to recruit a new generate and might be a good source of speakers, mentors, etc. Sadly, I found it difficult to compile a lot of great resources for rural medicine. There are some FP resources out there, but other specialties (g-surg) especially seem to be hesitant to promote rural. Can anyone else help out

 

[lowbudget]

As far as resources are concerned:

1. Look into the National Health Service Corp's SEARCH. There are other states and placements you can apply for but it essentially is a Rural Medicine rotation that is funded all over the country. You have to apply for it but Bush in his 1st term expanded funding to the NHSC.

http://nhsc.bhpr.hrsa.gov/join_us/search.asp

2. You should or can probably partner up with the International Medicine interest group at your school... or if not, you can incorporate elements of your interest group into International Medicine. There websites all over the net with rotations and scholarships. Just look for them.

3. Have you heard about the Wilderness Medical Society? This is a pretty sexy group that I ran into surfing through SDN. I think this is hard core rural medicine.

http://wms.org/studentgroups/sig_web_site/wmssighome.htm

4. Invariably, any Rural Medicine experience will include Obstetrics big time. Low risk, high risk, surgical. Also more ICU (neo, pedi, adult) and EM training. Maybe you can get your FM department to bust out some of its ALSO materials to do a procedure workshop for students (vacuum, the ancient art of foreceps, laceration repair).

 

[RuralMedicine]

Hola! I'm an M3 at the University of Kansas. We're in the process of getting a Rural Medicine Interest Group (RMIG) off the ground - so exciting! Does anyone have any suggestions for our group, links to great resources, advice, etc?

I really wish this group would have been around when I started. It seems as if Rural Medicine gets lost somewhere during the first two years of medical school.

Your school may have a list of alumni sorted by practice area try contacting some of the rural providers you might find valuable mentors or possibilities for elective rural clerkships. Obviously FM (yes Kent I corrected it ) providers make up a significant proportion of rural providers for good reason, but identifying physicians from other specialties (especially IM, Peds, IM-Peds, OB, Gen Surg etc) may actually broaden students horizons more.

Another good source of resources may be your state/regional AHEC system (and many of them sponsor rural clerkship programs for students if your medical school hasn't already delved into those directions).

Good luck ! I'd say PM me if you have further questions but I've been absent from the forums for >2 months and apparently my PM capacity decreased while I was gone so I'll try to check back on this thread. Perhaps that will foster more discussion anyway.

 

[lilmo]

Our school actually has a fairly active rural medicine program. During the first two years you can participate in Rural Weekend where you precept with a rural physician over a weekend for clinical skills credit. Third year, we can apply to do part of our rotations at a rural location - I'm totally looking forward to surgery. I hear I might actually get to do something besides hold retractors! And then fourth year everyone is required to complete a one-month rural rotation.

The experiences are available if you want them - we're just hoping to create a better network between providers and students. We did bring a rural FM doc in to come speak about the pros/cons of practicing in a small community. He was a huge hit.

Thanks for all the links and suggestions. Keep them coming!