Twenty-nine rural communities currently are participating, and additional sites will be selected throughout the state. An advisory committee of rural physician faculty and UA College of Medicine faculty select the students. Preference is given to students who have lived in a rural community or who have been accepted into the Arizona Medical Student Loan Program, a program in which medical school loans are forgiven for periods of post-graduate service in underserved areas of Arizona. Students are matched with rural physician preceptors based on medical specialty interest and community preference. Physician specialties include family practice, pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and surgery.
Students work with their preceptors over the course of their three years of medical training.
Beginning in the summer between the first and second years of medical school, each student spends four to six weeks residing and working in the rural community. Students return to the community in the third year, either as part of one of the required clinical courses or as an elective course, and again in the fourth year as an elective course. By returning to the same community during each year of medical school, students learn to appreciate the area's culture and community character and begin to experience the lifestyle of residents of rural areas. The course acquaints students with the complexities of dealing with managed care issues, referral needs, the impact of poverty and lack of health care, environmental health concerns, the influence of culture, issues unique to rural areas and the role of physicians in rural communities. Rural physician preceptors enhance their teaching skills through faculty development and continuing medical education programs conducted by the UA College of Medicine and offered regionally to reduce rural faculty travel time and minimize disruption of their medical practices.