Vocational career paths of graduate entry medical students at Flinders University: a comparison of rural, remote and tertiary tracks

Abstract

Objective: To provide data on the career trajectories of medical students from rural and remote workforce programs at Flinders University (the Parallel Rural Community Curriculum [PRCC] and the Northern Territory Clinical School [NTCS]), comparing them with students at the urban Flinders Medical Centre (FMC). Design: Retrospective postal survey of all 150 graduates who undertook their Year 3 study in the period 1998–2000. Outcome measure: Associations with career preference, assessed using univariate analyses and multivariate regression. Results: PRCC and NTCS graduates were more likely to choose rural career paths than graduates from FMC. The odds ratios were 19.1 (95% CI, 3.4–106.3; P < 0.001) and 4.3 (95% CI, 1.2–14.8; P = 0.026), respectively, after adjusting for age and rural background. There was no difference in the specialty choices of graduates of the three programs. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that clinical attachments designed to increase the rural and remote medical workforce do fulfil this objective.

The impact of rural outreach programs on medical students’ future rural intentions and working locations: a systematic review

“…did not adjust) Inferential statistics, unadjusted)[35, 37, 43, 46, 50, 54, 57, 67, 80, 86, 92, 94]12Sample Size (Includes both intervention/control/comparison group if applicable) Less than 100[37, 50, 73, 80–82, 84–89, 92, 93]14 100–500[12, 35, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47–49, 54, 56–59, 62, 67, 68, 70, 83, 90, 91, 94, 95]24 500+[36, 38, 41, 43, 46, 51–53, 55, 60, 61, 63–66, 69, 71, 72, 74–79]24Consent or Participant Rate (Depending on the study/type of study and reporting) Below 50%[35, 47, 58, 59, 69, 71, 73, 79, 81, 88, 91]11 50–80%[39, 40, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 56, 64, …”

“…The first was a Rural Clinical Placement (RCP) program (twenty seven studies) [35–38, 44, 46, 56, 58, 59, 64–66, 68, 71, 73–75, 81–84, 86, 89–91, 93, 95]. These included any rural clinical placement programs where participants were from a metropolitan based school (the school or study is not based in a rural location and is not classed as part of a rural clinical school).…”

“…Thirty five articles were from Australia, [12, 49, 63, 67–71, 73, 78–81, 84–90, 92] eighteen from the United States [50–55, 60–62, 64, 65, 72, 75–77, 93–95] five from Canada [56, 58, 59, 66, 83] two from New Zealand [82, 91], and one each from Thailand [74], and Africa [57]. …”

“…Forty-two of the studies were designed and implemented within a single medical school (rather than a partnership with multiple schools) [12, 36, 39–47, 49–56, 60–63, 68, 69, 72, 73, 76, 78, 80–89, 93–95], while twenty programs involved multiple medical schools [35, 37, 38, 48, 57–60, 64–67, 70, 71, 75, 77, 79, 90–92]. …”

“…The quality screening process led to 40 studies being classified as ‘moderate’ and therefore were well reported but the study designs could have been better by applying; larger sample sizes, achieving higher consent/participant rates, reducing risk of selection and recall bias, multi-site programs, applying control groups, or being multi-strategy comparison programs [12, 35–73]. …”