RPAP Key to Recruiting Small-Town Docs

By: Emily Jensen

Laura Ford-Nathan and husband David Nathan discover she matched at Allina in family medicine.

“I would run into patients everywhere—at the grocery store, the library, the gym,” says Laura Ford-Nathan, a fourth-year student at the University of Minnesota Medical School. “I liked seeing them, and seeing how the babies I delivered are growing up.”

As a participant in the Rural Physicians Associate Program, Ford-Nathan spent her third year of medical school living in Glencoe, Minn., and working under the supervision of physicians. While learning the intricacies of the small-town, family practice style of medicine, she assisted at the delivery of 37 babies, performed nearly 20 intubations, and ran lab work for her patients.

Alumni like Ford-Nathan and Stacy Longnecker, M.D., value the program and say their experiences allowed them to work one-on-one with doctors and gain more hands-on experience than their counterparts rotating at large hospitals.

Longnecker preferred RPAP to doing rotations in a larger city. “As a med student, I was not going to get the direct experience I wanted having to look over everyone else’s shoulders.”

Students feel the program better prepares them for the real world of rural practice. And as the state continues to experience shortages in small-town doctors, the RPAP remains a key recruitment tool for medical students considering practice in rural areas.

Now in it its 38th year of existence, RPAP enrolls an average of 33 participants per year. Director Kathleen Brooks says the program has graduated more than 1,200 students: 77 percent chose primary care specialties, 67 percent specifically chose family medicine, and 57 percent have gone into rural practice.

Aside from practicing with and shadowing physicians, students must also meet a set of requirements. They complete assignments in clerkships, participate in online discussions, and take standardized exams. Additionally, students pioneer a community health assessment project in which they review health issues in their area and then create and implement a plan to help solve the problem. In some cities, this has resulted in weight loss challenges, improved dental care access, and education about how elderly community members can prevent falls.

Students also build close relationships with community physicians along the way.

“I babysat for one, I learned how to quilt from another, and I just e-mailed one of them today,” says Ford-Nathan. “They’re my mentors and superiors, but they’re also my friends.”

Community preceptors, too, contribute an integral role in the RPAP experience, as they monitor and give feedback to the student throughout the duration of their nine-month stays. Many preceptors were RPAP students themselves, and they understand the importance of giving back to the program and community.

“Our community preceptors invest time and energy into students because they love their work and believe in it,” says Brooks. “That’s their motivation.”