The Adelaide solution

Resumo

Introdução: This abstract that will show the development of the University of Adelaide Rural Health School . We aim is to increase the number of rural doctors in South Australia Eventually we will be linked to opportunities for our graduates with rural education with rural based interns, followed by rural placements for registrars.

Objetivos: The objective was to demonstrate that medical education can occur in small rural centres using a longitudinal integrated curriculum. South Australia has very small rural population centres, but we have still delivered a quality medical education.

Metodologia ou Descrição da Experiência: The University of Adelaide discipline of rural health started as a collaboration with the University of South Australia in 2004. In 2012 the University of Adelaide rural health school became a stand alone school. This presentation will show how the school has become an instrument for change in educating future rural doctors. We are using different assessment methods, that deliver better feedback to the students than their metropolitan counterparts. We have become a driver for change in the medical school itself.

Resultados: Whilst we had to prove city based sceptics wrong, our results show that our students perform no worse than their traditional metropolitan counterparts, and in many areas surpass their metropolitan students performance. We believe this is a combination of the integrated curriculum, better assessment and mentoring that they experience.

Conclusão ou Hipóteses: Rural medical undergraduate teaching has been shown to be possible using local rural generalist preceptors. This is the first step in increasing South Australias rural doctors. We are expecting more rural procedural post graduate training posts to follow. Traditional methods have not increased the supply of rural doctors, we hope to reverse this.