First-year students hit the road on August 30 for rural community visits

Fifty-eight new first-year students from the University of Minnesota Medical School -- Duluth Campus and 55 first-year students from the College of Pharmacy at Duluth are taking part in the first phase of a special 20-hour course that introduces them to what it’s like to be a family physician or pharmacist working in a small community.  A highlight of the course takes place on Thursday, August 30, when the students load onto buses to visit hospitals, businesses and community groups in six rural communities in Northern Minnesota:  Aitkin, Cloquet, Grand Rapids, Hibbing, Moose Lake and Two Harbors.  Called “Introduction to Rural Family Medicine,” the course is designed to expose new medical and pharmacy students to rural communities and to the leaders most knowledgeable about rural health care and community issues.

This course becomes increasingly important as studies show that shortages are projected in almost every physician specialty during the next 20 years.   According to the Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Rural Health and Primary Care, in 2005, 56 rural counties and 5 urban counties in Minnesota are partially or fully designated as Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs), indicating less than one primary care physician to 3,500 people and lack of access to physician care in contiguous areas. Most of the full-county HPSAs are located in northern and western Minnesota. 

"We are very grateful to all of the physicians, pharmacists, business and community leaders who spend time with our students today. An experience like this inspires these students to become rural family physicians and pharmacists, and we all know that it's crucial to do so because our rural areas face shortages in healthcare professionals," commented Ruth Westra, D.O., Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Duluth campus. “Introducing them to rural community leaders is a concrete, effective way to do that,” she added. 

Gary Davis, senior associate dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School – Duluth Campus, added:   “Innovative team care and partnerships among doctors, pharmacists and other health care professionals will be critical to serving patients well.  We created this program and then encouraged the pharmacy students to join our medical students in order to start building those relationships today.”

Davis’s comment was echoed by Randall D. Seifert, Pharm.D., senior associate dean and professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences.  “Serious shortages in physicians and pharmacists already exist in rural Minnesota, and this cooperative program will help us educate the next generation of caregivers, giving them a first-hand look at how health care providers are providing services in smaller communities, and showing our future doctors and pharmacists how to work together for the benefit of the patients.”

The College of Pharmacy, which supplies more than 90 percent of Minnesota’s pharmacists, graduates 160 Pharm.D. students every year.  One-third of those graduates are from the Duluth program.   According to the College of Pharmacy, there were 997 community pharmacies in the state which would ideally like to hire 201 full-time and 423 part-time pharmacists within the year. The estimate is based on an analysis of 2004 survey results conducted by the College Pharmacist Workforce Research Group combined with State Board of Pharmacy records.