<p>Essentially, programs that give medical students the opportunity to study medicine in a rural setting in the hopes that those students would decide to practice in rural areas upon graduation.</p>
<p>There is a difference between rural and underserved. Rural is going to mean small towns. The Census calls urban centers as those with population densities > 1000/sq. mile and surounding areas with densities more than 500/sq mile. While most rural cities are in fact underserved, but there are also many sections of inner cities that are also underserved. The terms should not be confused.</p>
<p>East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN</p>
<p>Its Mission</p>
<pre><code>The primary mission of the Quillen College of Medicine is to educate future physicians, especially those with an interest in primary care, to practice in underserved rural communities. In addition, the College is committed to excellence in biomedical research and is dedicated to the improvement of health care in Northeast Tennessee and the surrounding Appalachian Region.
</code></pre>
<p>ah. i've read somewhere sayin that rural programs tend to have better clinical hours than non-rural med schools. is that true? and also, after getting md from rural program, do you have as much chance to compete against non-rural Md graduates in jobs all over the us?</p>
<p>I think it's tough to generalize what type of clinical experience a rural program will provide. But the key thing to point out is that simply because a school has a rural program does not mean that everything you do is rurally based. As someone who attends one of the schools listed, I can assure you that I live in a big city (metro population ~800,000). So simply attending a medical school with a rural program will not matter in terms of residency, because for the most part it's only a portion of the curriculum.</p>
<p>The schools listed are all in metropolitan areas, but some have explicit programs for medical students while others are just residency programs. My own school has an explicit rural residency program. Medical student exposure to rural medicine is done with the family practice clinical rotation in the third year and a 3 week primary care block during the summer between the M1 and M2 years. While the M3 clinical rotation is a little bit more standardized, there still is a great variation in the amount and types of problems the medical students get to experience during the rotation. </p>
<p>Even greater variation exists during the primary care block. I did a surgery rotation and got to do a number of things that none of my colleagues, even the ones who also did surgery in other towns, got to do.</p>
<p>Now one thing that is probably true for most rural medicine experiences is that the medical students get to do a lot more than they might in an equal metropolitan setting. This is due to the fact that there aren't residents or as many students around, so you're it. The surgeon I followed this summer not only let me stitch up after surgeries, but was willing to take the time to teach me while the patient was still under anesthesia - a couple times it was a really slow and painful process. When I complete my general surgery clinical rotation during my 3rd year at my medical school, I doubt that I get to work much on the stitching b/c that duty will fall to the fellow, the resident, or the 4th year medical student I may be following.</p>
<p>There are a lot of schools with rural programs. WVSOM has been nationally ranked for 10 years running. You can look them up at wvsom.edu
I visited wvsom recently and really liked it.</p>