From: Susan Guthrie
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 10:59 AM
Subject: UA Medical Students and Rural Physicians Work Side-by-Side in Program

UA Medical Students and Rural Physicians Work Side-by-Side in Program
That Encourages Health Professionals to Practice in Rural Areas

 May 31, 2005
Contact: Jean Spinelli or George Humphrey, (520) 626-7301                                                     

MEDICAL WRITERS/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS NOTE: To arrange interviews with the physicians and/or students, who are available on a limited basis, please contact Carol Galper, EdD, assistant dean for curricular affairs, UA College of Medicine, (520) 626-2351.

A select group of physicians in rural communities throughout Arizona are spending part of their summer mentoring University of Arizona medical students.

For four to six weeks in May, June and July, the physicians volunteer as preceptors, or mentors, to UA medical students between the first and second years of medical school.  The students work at the physicians' practice sites and reside in their communities.

The physicians are rural faculty members in The University of Arizona College of Medicine’s Rural Health Professions Program, established in 1997 by the Arizona Legislature to encourage medical school graduates to practice medicine in rural communities.

The 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.  Thirty-four rural communities are participating in the RHPP, and additional sites will be selected throughout the state. Communities hosting students this summer include:

The students will continue to work with their preceptors over the course of their three remaining years of medical training, returning to the rural communities in their third and fourth years.

“This program helps nurture students’ interest in a rural practice,” says Carol Galper, EdD, assistant dean for curricular affairs, UA College of Medicine.  “Many of the students grew up in rural towns in Arizona and have a desire to practice in small communities, perhaps even returning to their hometowns.  Their RHPP experiences help them understand the unique health care needs of rural populations as well as strategies to address these needs, and help them decide about where they want to practice in the future.”

By working side-by-side with a physician -- consulting with patients, discussing lab results, helping to diagnose childhood ailments, observing surgeries -- students learn about the unique health care needs of rural populations and how to meet them.  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 rural residents.

Each year, 15 first-year UA medical students are selected for RHPP and given intensive preparation, including a course covering managed-care issues, referral needs, the impact of poverty and lack of health care, environmental health concerns, the influence of culture, and the role of physicians in rural communities.

RHPP students learn to use telemedicine technology in communities that are linked to the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) -- a health care telecommunications network that allows rural physicians and patients to have real-time online medical consultations with specialists at The University of Arizona Health Sciences Center (AHSC) in Tucson.  The system also allows rural physician preceptors and their students to “virtually” attend grand rounds lectures at the UA College of Medicine. 

Rural physician preceptors enhance their teaching skills by attending faculty development and continuing medical education programs conducted by the UA College of Medicine.  To minimize disruption of the physicians’ medical practices, the programs are offered regionally as well as by video links provided by ATP to AHSC and the Regional Behavioral Health Authorities of the Arizona Department of Health Services/Division of Behavioral Health Service Services.

RHPP students develop long-term relationships with their rural physician preceptors, who act as medical and career counselors, helping the students make informed choices when they decide where they will practice medicine. 

Forty-eight students currently are participating in RHPP, a new group will be selected from the entering class this fall.  The first group of 15 medical students to participate in RHPP graduated from the UA College of Medicine in May 2000; to date, 84 students have graduated from RHPP, many of whom still are completing their residency training.

 “Last year one of our first graduates, Dr. Shirley Rheinfelder, who works with Dr. Susan Jones at a family practice group in Safford, precepted an RHPP student.  This year another RHPP graduate, Dr. Gail Guererro-Tucker, will be joining that same practice in Safford,” reports Dr. Galper.  The Safford practice also serves as a Family and Community Medicine clerkship site for teaching third-year medical students about rural family medicine. 

“We now have other graduates throughout the state, in places like Fort Mohave, Camp Verde, Flagstaff and Prescott, with more graduates returning each year.  It is exciting to see these physicians return to Arizona and to have them teach our RHPP students.  RHPP has come full circle,” says Dr. Galper.

For more information about RHPP, visit the website, http://www.medicine.arizona.edu/pcrm/RHPP/rhpp.html.

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Susan Guthrie
Senior Public Affairs Coordinator
University of Arizona, College of Medicine
Phoenix Campus
4001 N. Third Street, Suite 401
Phoenix, Arizona  85012
602-631-6555 (office) 480-241-7738 (cell)
sguthrie@email.arizona.edu