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MU rural training program provides medical students with experience Physician shortages in rural areas and a growing demand for primary care physicians prompted 21 advancing first-year medical students at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine to take advantage of the Area Health Education Center’s Rural Track Program. “This is a three-tier program we developed to not only enhance our students’ educations, but also to give them a better idea of what it’s like to live and practice in rural areas,” said Kevin Kane, M.D., M.S.P.H., an associate professor of family and community medicine and medical director for MU’s Area Health Education Center. “For students considering a future practice in a rural or underserved area, this type of real-world experience often enhances their desire to work in and become members of small, close-knit communities.” The Rural Summer Community is one of the components of the three-tiered program. The four-to-eight-week course places students in rural communities between their first and second years of medical school for a community-based clinical experience. “The program provides them with firsthand experiences in rural medicine and exposes them to the joys and challenges of being physicians in rural communities,” said Kathleen Quinn, director of the MU Area Health Education Center. The Third-Year Rural Clerkships is the second component of the three-tiered program. It allows students to spend much of their third year of medical school in rural hospitals and clinics in the state. The third component of the Rural Track Program targets pre-med students. The Bryant Scholars Pre-Admission Program is designed to attract the brightest rural students to MU’s School of Medicine by offering guaranteed admission to qualified freshmen at six Missouri colleges and universities. The tenth group of pre-admission students will enter medical school this fall. Beginning in 1994 with a grant awarded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the three MU Area Health Education Center programs are now also supported by state and local funds. The goal of the center is to improve the supply and distribution of health care providers, particularly primary care providers, in underserved areas of Missouri. The University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine was the first publicly supported medical school west of the Mississippi. Today, MU’s medical school is comprised of more than 500 faculty physicians and scientists. The medical school is the primary source of physicians practicing in Missouri. It has received national and international recognition for all aspects of its patient care, research and teaching missions. MU medical school alumni include the founder of the Mayo Clinic, William Mayo, and Fred Robbins, Nobel Prize winner for his work on the polio vaccine. |
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