By this summer, Robyn Henderson hopes to have at least 50 health profession students in community health rotations throughout rural Nebraska.
Through a contract with the federal National Health Service Corps (NHSC) students studying a health profession will get the opportunity to receive training in culturally diverse, community-based systems of care. The program allows students to add a new dimension to their required clinical rotation.
Student/Resident Experiences and Rotation in Community Health (SEARCH) is a community health program aimed at health profession students and NHSC scholars to enhance their community involvement skills.
The program places special emphasis on interdisciplinary training and behavioral health careers. Rotations, which can last from two weeks to three months, are targeted to culturally and economically diverse areas, with an emphasis on underserved populations and rural areas.
“The students in this program will get to see a wider variety of health issues than their urban counterparts because of the lack of specialization in a rural area,” said Henderson, an assistant director in the Rural Health Education Network Office.
To be eligible to participate students must be in their first professional year of schooling, Henderson said. Students can combine the SEARCH opportunity with their required clinical rotations. This helps provide a perspective that is somewhat different from that of a strictly clinical role. Students will also get an understanding of the role of health professionals as members of the community, she said.
“The health professional is seen as a leader in the community and looked to as the expert on health and health related information,” Henderson said.
To gain experience in this area, Henderson said the students will be required to participate in a community project, such as assisting with AHEC career camps, presenting career awareness programs to youths or surveying community members on health concerns.
“This will also allow the students to interact with people in the community outside of the clinical setting and expose them to rural life,” Henderson said.
The culture of rural life is much different than urban life, she said. There is a pride among people in rural communities where they tend to depend on themselves and each other more than expecting society at large to take care of them.
“They are less likely to see a doctor unless they are very sick,” Henderson said. “Or they may not have health insurance but just a catastrophic policy that doesn’t cover preventive care.”
And when it comes to seeking help for mental health, rural people are less likely to do so, she said. “There is a definite pride in rural families and in that lifestyle that makes it harder for folks to share their concerns with their physician or seek another source of care,” Henderson said.
Henderson is working on contacting students, identifying preceptors and setting up rotations for this summer.
Reflecting program priorities and rural community need, she said, preference will be given to the following areas: dentistry, family practice, internal medicine, physician assistant, psychiatry, psychiatric nurse practitioner, psychology, pharmacy and social work.
“The hope is that some of these students will want to return and practice in these areas once they graduate,” Henderson said. “Ninety percent of our placement sites have to be in health profession shortage areas and we already know through our work in the RHEN office that there is a greater need for health professionals in rural Nebraska.”