University of Florida

AHEC works closely with communities all over north Florida to improve health-care access on the local level, but also strives within the academic health center to influence health professions education toward a greater emphasis on the primary-care needs of the medically underserved. AHEC participation encourages and enables health professions education programs to enhance their curricula with community-based clinical experiences, interdisciplinary training, distance education and other programs vital to students' learning.

Considered one of AHEC's most successful collaborations with the UF College of Medicine, the Introduction to Clinical Practice course required of first-year medical students has earned high ratings from students and preceptors alike for the past seven years. Part of the Essentials of Patient Care course block, Introduction to Clinical Practice places students in the field where community primary-care physicians throughout north Florida give them one-on-one instruction. The use of more than 80 community physicians each year has enabled the College of Medicine to expand its faculty base while maintaining its high academic standards.

With the assistance of AHEC, the College of Medicine has implemented an innovative interdisciplinary clerkship for its third-year medical students. The clerkship blends the formerly separate primary-care clinical experiences from three disciplines into a single, continuous, coordinated course with emphasis on primary-care pediatrics, internal medicine and family medicine. The clerkship provides students the opportunity to evaluate and manage common ambulatory problems in a larger number of patients than they would have seen previously.

 Through affiliation with the UF College of Nursing, nurse practitioner faculty and students conduct clinics in various rural and medically underserved clinical sites surrounding Gainesville and Alachua county. These educational programs allow nursing students to provide primary-care services that otherwise wouldn't be available to many rural and medically underserved residents.

Each year of the academic partnership with the UF Physician Assistant Program has meant an increasing role for AHEC in developing and coordinating clinical teaching sites and community faculty for these students. With AHEC assistance, the Physician Assistant Program has been able to offer students a rural track unlike any being offered elsewhere in the country.

This innovative program takes all first-year medical students into the homes of north central Florida families to learn about family health issues from people who face them every day. Students engage in a series of tasks involving interviewing and health assessments, coupled with small-group learning and discussion sessions in which faculty act as mentors.

Health professions students with an interest in rural practice often receive little support for this preference at urban-based academic health centers. To make sure these students receive ample encouragement for their chosen career path, AHEC has created the Rural Health Scholars Program. The program identifies UF health professions students with a preference for rural practice, helps them establish a peer group, and supplements their curriculum with activities designed to prepare them for work in a rural practice environment. These activities include discussions with rural practitioners and clinic administrators, field trips to medically underserved practice sites, and rural rotations.