Rural Medicine Elective

[Mighty K]

Has anybody out there done an elective in rural medicine during their 4th year? Is there such a thing as electives in a mountain or ski town? Does anybody know where I can find out any information? Any suggestions on doing an elective in something a little "different?"

Thanks.

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[LaCirujana]

Most of Utah qualifies as "rural," and 4th year med students at the University of Utah are required to do a rural rotation. Plenty of the students do rotations in/near Park City or Heber (about 20-30 minutes from Park City and Sundance). Moab (great mountain biking) is another popular spot for the rotation. You can contact the school for more info.

 

[lionel]

university of washington is known for this, as is ETSU and a few other places....might want to look around their web sites...

 

[SarahL]

UCSF has a campus in Fresno. Fresno is a small city, but it's in the heart of California's Central Valley, which is very rural. The surrounding area is basically one big farm. A lot of the migrant workers there are from Mexico, so it's a great place to brush up on your Spanish.

I know there's a rural campus affiliated with a school of medicine in Alabama, too. UCSF-Fresno has been chosen along with the Alabama school and about eight others to be inspected and written up so that other schools can start their own rural medical centers. Unfortunately the UCSF web site has frozen up or I'd give you a link to the web page that describes this. You should probably visit the UCSF web site at <a href="http://www.ucsf.edu" target="_blank">www.ucsf.edu</a> and do a search for Fresno. It will describe the campus and the news article about the site visit, which will list the other nine schools to be visited.

I hope this is clear...I'm having trouble with my web browser for some reason. Feel free to email me about it if you want.

SarahL

 

[WSU02]

another school to contact would be Michigan State University.

 

[LR6SO4]

I know that MSU trains it's rural students in Marquette and I am from by there. It was voted #1 mountain biking area by Bike magazine last year and there are some really good trails just waiting to be ridden up there. Skiing is typical midwest (500') unless you go farther north to <a href="http://www.mtbohemia.com" target="_blank">www.mtbohemia.com</a> that's a fun place!

 

[Winged Scapula]

If you REALLY want rural and are interested (and allowed) in going abroad, might I suggest the outback of Australia?

Flinders University of South Australia as well as Sydney University offer a number of 4th/final year rotations in several rural locations. You can do Surgery, Medicine, Peds, ID, etc. and have a really interesting, fun and valuable experience. See these school's web sites for contact info.

I can also vouch for UCSF-Fresno rotations. I doubt that Fresno proper would qualify as rural (having grown up there) but they do have some Rural FP sites out in migrant worker territory in the Central SJ Valley surrounding Fresno. The link is located under Medical Student electives are the main UCSF web site. Or try <a href="http://www.ucsfresno.edu" target="_blank">www.ucsfresno.edu</a>

Best of luck!