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A COMPARISON OF MEDICAL STUDENT EXPERIENCES IN RURAL SPECIALTY AND METROPOLITAN TEACHING HOSPITAL PRACTICE
Author(s) -
Kamien Max
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
australian journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.48
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1584
pISSN - 1038-5282
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1584.1996.tb00203.x
Subject(s) - metropolitan area , specialty , medical education , medicine , teaching hospital , family medicine , nursing , pathology
One factor in solving the rural medical workforce shortage is to foster student interest by greater exposure to rural medicine. However, many medical school teachers are concerned that this may cause students to be disadvantaged by missing core lectures, tutorials and ward rounds in the setting of the high quality of teaching hospital medicine. This paper compares the rural specialty experience of 28 fifth‐year volunteers with 28 ‘pairs’ who remained in the city teaching hospitals. Rural students saw double the number of medical conditions, assisted in or performed six times as many procedures, and all but three students were sure that they had a better educational experience than their city counterparts. This is a strong academic argument for greater medical student exposure to rural specialty practice.