Rural health undergraduate student tracking project

CUCRH facilitates opportunities for health science students to complete rural placements during their undergraduate training.  The rationale underpinning the program is that students exposed to a positive and valuable rural placement, are more likely to return to rural areas as employees. 

CUCRH has put this assumption to the test by following students had a rural clinical placement in their final year.  We contact them every year for three years after their graduation.  By matching where they are working after graduation to information we collected at the end of their placement, we can investigate what factors are important in encouraging rural employment.

So far the results are very promising.  Out of the nursing and allied health students who had a rural placement in 2000 to 2003, 25% were working in the country after graduation.  Some of the important predictors of rural employment were placements that were not voluntary and were four weeks or less in duration.  Students who had lived in rural areas for an extended time and who reported that their placement was an ‘excellent’ professional experience were also more likely to be working in the country.

The results have helped CUCRH to convince universities and health services of the importance of clinical placements in building a future rural health workforce.  They are also helping CUCRH to continuing to improve the educational experiences that we offer.

Results of the study have been published in Australian Journal of Rural Health.
The full citation is Denese Playford, Ann Larson & Belynda Wheatland, Going country:  rural student placement factors associated with future rural employment in nursing and allied health, Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2006, vol. 14, pp. 14-19.

Further analysis of the tracking study will include an investigation of the role of the placement site.  Our preliminary work suggests that it is the smaller and more remote sites that are associated with a higher proportion of graduates taking up rural practice.  We are also investigating if factors related to the retention of early career health professions are the same or different in rural and urban sites.

For more information about the project contact CUCRH Director Ann Larson.