ABSTRACT

 
Project Title: Rural Opportunities in Medical Education (ROME)
Project Director: William S. Mann
Organization Name:

Department of Family Medicine

Address:

PO Box 9037

501 N Columbia Road

Grand Forks, ND 58203

Phone: 701-777-3200
Fax: 701-777-3849

E-mail:

wmmann@medicine.nodak.edu
Project Period:

September 1, 1998 – August 30, 2001

Amount: $565,920
Discipline: Family Medicine

Our overall plan is to design and implement sound educational interventions to increase the number of (1) medical students that choose a family practice residency and (2) residents to chose a family medicine practice in a rural or frontier community in ND.  We propose to develop structures and resources in the department to allow for major enhancements to the entire predoctoral  curriculum, enrichment of four family practice residency programs and faculty development for rural family physicians as preceptors and faculty as researcher. 

Goal I:    Develop, implement and evaluate a nine-month rural and frontier family-practice-office-based experience to replace traditional series of clinical specialty rotations.  This new program, ROME, Rural Opportunities in Medical Education, required for 16 3rd/yr students will be administered by the DFM.

Goal II:   Further develop curriculum in family medicine research, especially relevant to rural practice, from predoctoral through residency levels, and implement expanded resident and faculty research, especially among the Department’s four family practice residency programs.

Goal III:   Strengthen the DFM’s administrative base for centralized support and coordination of education, research, and practice at diverse and remote Family Medicine settings throughout ND, enhancing efforts to meet needs of this state’s rural and underserved communities.  Measurable ROME learning objectives and outcomes:  provide comprehensive care; possess beginning procedural skills essential to a family physician; demonstrate working capacity with other members of a health care team; demonstrate interpersonal skills so as to recognize psycho-social, sexual, and family components of medical problems; demonstrate rudimentary skills and values that can lead to becoming a life-long independent learner; demonstrate increased valuing of a rural lifestyle and evidence increased personal confidence and competence in assuming the role of a rural family physician; and, ultimately, change student’s career path toward family practice in rural and frontier ND.  Measurable resident objectives and faculty objectives with respect to research skills will also be defined