The Rural Community Health Clerkship is a partnership between the Oregon Health &
Science University School of Medicine and the Statewide Area Health Education Centers
Program.
One of eight, five-week clerkships required of third- and some fourth-year
medical students, it provides the opportunity to experience primary
care as practiced in rural areas or with underserved populations in
Oregon. Each student is supervised by a skilled primary care physician
experienced in internal medicine, pediatrics or family medicine.
The clerkship is an ideal opportunity for medical students
to learn about and apply some of the principles of community-oriented
primary care and population-based clinical practice. It is unique in
that students are required to complete a community project in additional
to their clinical experience. Students pick a specific population and
a problem they wish to investigate (e.g., tobacco use among adolescents;
snowboarding trauma, etc.), then gather data, draw conclusions, and
present their findings at the end of their rotation.
An abstracted list of all community projects is available at the AHEC Statewide Program
office at OHSU. For more information regarding this program please contact Becki Anderson by
or by telephone at 503 494-1165.
The Oregon Burdick Interdisciplinary Team Training program was a clinical
experience for health care students with an expressed interest
in the provision of health care to rural, underserved communities.
The experience was structured
within an interdisciplinary framework designed to expand the thinking
of how best to address the needs of the patient population. At
the conclusion of the four week rotation students had substantial
exposure to the
needs of an underserved population, the resources available
to meet those needs, and the factors that facilitate or hinder
the meeting
of those needs.
The OR-BITT Program grant cycle ended in August of 2004 and the program
is no longer accepting students.
