Medical Students Provide Care and Serve in Rural Communities Across the State
Community integration projects encourage students to identify needs outside the clinic
Jessica Johnson wasn’t sure of what to expect of rural life or medicine in Kennett, Mo., but when she learned of the high rate of asthma among children in the bootheel town, she wanted to help them learn more about the disease. Across the state near Joplin, Lincoln Sheets wanted rural Latino middle school students to consider careers in health care fields, so he began planning a bilingual job fair for the fall.
Both Johnson and Sheets are third-year medical students at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and participants in the school’s rural track clerkship program, which pairs students with community-based faculty from across the state for up to six months of clinical rotations. The rural track program, coordinated by the MU Area Health Education Center (MU-AHEC) in partnership with the regional Missouri AHEC offices, gives medical students the opportunity to experience rural life and medicine with the hope that the future physicians would someday choose to practice in rural communities.
Twenty percent of the students who participated in the MU Rural Track Clerkship Program from 1997 to 2005 are now practicing in Missouri towns with a population of 18,000 or less. Research shows that the more involved students become in their communities, the more likely they are to have a positive experience in a rural setting, said Jana Porter, coordinator of rural health education for the MU School of Medicine. So starting in 2007, students like Johnson and Sheets have been given the option of completing a community integration project (CIP) – a customized experience beyond rural clinic walls where students attend local events, volunteer, and participate through service learning projects.
“Doing these types of projects helps show students the role that rural physicians play in their towns, beyond their medical practice,” Porter said. “A lot of them serve as community leaders and involved citizens.”
For Johnson, a native of suburban St. Louis, working alongside rural physicians has been an eye-opening experience.
“Doing this as a student lets you see how much of an impact you can have as a rural physician,” Johnson said. “But it also comes with great responsibility in that you can never take the white coat off so to speak. Everyone always sees you as a physician.”
When completing their community integration project, students choose their own level of involvement. While some participate in local festivals and events, others become more engaged by volunteering in an existing service program or by working with local organizations to develop a project that identifies and meets a community need.
Sheets’ idea for a bilingual career fair hatched as he discussed his rural experience with Elizabeth Garrett, MD, an MU professor of family and community medicine physician and a native of Monett. The October career fair is designed to attract middle school students and their families from the area, where many Latinos are employed in agriculture and poultry processing plants. Students and health professionals will attend to answer questions, and Sheets hopes that future medical students in rural clerkships will use the bilingual materials he’s developing to host future career fairs.
“If we’re getting middle school students excited about using a stethoscope, and seeing how blood glucose is measured, then they can take the science classes in high school to set them up for success if the dream of working in the health care field catches on,” Sheets said.
Johnson is working with quality improvement staff at Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center in Kennett to develop asthma education resources for children, which would be distributed at local schools, clinics and the hospital emergency department. Kennett, a town of 11,000, is an agricultural community with one of the densest asthma populations in the state.
“Doing projects like this gives you a better idea of where your patients are coming from,” Johnson said. “I’m making a conscious effort to be as involved as possible.”
