The Dalhousie University experience of training residents in many small communities

Abstract

Postgraduate medical education at Dalhousie is somewhat unusual in that all first-year trainees are required to spend time in a small community as part of their training; hence, students who choose programs at Dalhousie often do so because of their interest in experience in a variety of communities, including those outside metropolitan areas. Still, it was surprising that graduates of some non-primary-care specialty programs, in addition to the graduates of the primary care programs, tended to choose rural practice locations. The site of postgraduate training appears to be one of the important factors in the selection of practice locations.

Does a rural educational experience influence students' likelihood of rural practice? Impact of student background and gender

“…However, compared to their urban peers, rural background students indicated after the rural experience that they were significantly more likely to practice in a community similar to their family medicine training site. This finding is consistent with others 18 , 19 who have shown that site of postgraduate training is an important factor in deciding where to practice.…”

Predictors of site choice and eventual learning experiences in a decentralised training programme designed to prepare medical students for careers in underserved areas in South Africa

“…The situated learning theory postulates that a training location provides the context within which a student develops his or her professional identity. [16,17] Programmes that utilise a distributed design must ensure that adequate resources, both human and material, are available to enhance the personal learning of students in rural areas. This would more likely encourage these students to return to similar settings for future practice.…”

Implementing the CanMEDS™ physician roles in rural specialist education: The multi-specialty community training network

“…There was a need to develop new approaches for specialist medical education that would better address these societal needs. Although rural learning experiences have been described in some specialty training programs, none appear to have focused on a societal needs competency framework (Cameron, 1972;Almy, 1975;Crandall et al, 1978;Maiuro & Trupin, 1980;Asher et al, 1984;Kairy & Newell, 1985;Petti et al, 1987;Boust, 1991;Bridges, 1994;Gray et al, 1994;Kanagarajah, 1996;Mazwai, 1999;MacDonald, 1998;Dewitt et al, 2001;Jensen & Dewitt, 2002;Hunter & Deveney, 2003;Vangelisti, 2003).…”