Impact of a rural interprofessional experience in rural communities on medical and pharmacy students.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The mission of the medicine and pharmacy programs at the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus is to prepare students for practice in rural communities. To support and encourage medical and pharmacy students to choose to practice in rural Minnesota, an interprofessional experience was developed to expose medical and pharmacy students to a variety of aspects of rural health care. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of the Rural Interprofessional Experience (RIE) on perceived knowledge and attitudes of medical and pharmacy students toward rural practice. METHODS Medical and pharmacy students were surveyed before and after their RIE to assess student perceptions of the value of the experience. RESULTS Analysis shows that both medical and pharmacy students demonstrated a positive change in perceived knowledge after their participation in the rural community experience. However, most attitudes toward rural community participation did not change significantly. CONCLUSIONS The RIE of medical and pharmacy students is associated with an increase in perceived knowledge in all categories related to rural health care.