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Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program
The Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP) is a program of the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSM) in partnership with the WWAMI Programs and AHECs in Montana, Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming and Washington. R/UOP provides a four-week opportunity for students between the first and second years of medical school to be placed with a physician preceptor in a rural, or urban underserved, clinical site. R/UOP encourages primary care careers in underserved communities by providing students with hands-on experiences in clinical practices; in addition to exposure to the rural or underserved community. Preceptors are practicing physicians in rural sites or urban clinics serving the underserved. Physicians serving as preceptors are primary care physicians (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology and General Practice). The UWSM appoints R/UOP physicians as Clinical Preceptors - and - after two years of service as a R/UOP preceptor, physicians are eligible for appointments as clinical faculty at the UWSM.
Montana WWAMI Students
University of Washington has laid out some of the steps for the application process, so check out UW the Need to Know Information about R/UOP site.
Program Goals
The primary goals of R/UOP are to: (a) provide students with an early exposure to the challanges and rewards of practicing primary care medicine in a rural or urban underserved setting, (b) promote in students a positive attitude toward rural and urban underserved community medicine, and (c) provide students with an opportunity to learn how community health care systems function. In addition, many of the medical students choose to conduct community-based research projects.
Eligibility and Participation
All medical students enrolled in the first year of medicine at the UWSM in Seattle and at the remote WWAMI sites at Washington State University-Pullman, University of Wyoming-Laramie, University of Alaska-Anchorage, Montana State University-Bozeman and University of Idaho-Moscow are eligible and encourage to take advantage of the R/UOP experience. Students may apply to do the clinical rotation in any of the five states. The Montana AHEC places 20 to 30 students each summer.
Each year, the Montana AHEC invites primary care physicians practicing in rural and underserved settings to serve as R/UOP preceptors. On the average, 100 Montana physicians accept the invitation.
2007 Student Placements
Contacts
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