Community Service

Community Service

DART Program Strikes Interest in Rural Health Professions


Most of the Pacific Northwest is rural terrain.

According to Dr. Nancy Stevens, "The shortage of health-services providers and primary-care physicians in rural America is a national problem."

Stevens, UW associate professor of family medicine, oversees a program called Demonstration Assistance in Rural Training (DART). DART is a pilot program funded by a congressional directive through the Office of Rural Health Policy. The program exposes rural students to careers in the health professions.

Evidence indicates that physicians raised in rural communities are likely to return to rural practice. However, according to Stevens, too few students from rural communities apply to health sciences schools. Once they apply, these students have the same odds of being accepted as students from urban areas. DART's goal is to enrich the applicant pool with rural students.

DART operates within the five WWAMI states (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). These states are among the nation's largest in area and smallest in population. The sparsely settled region is an excellent rural "laboratory" for the DART project, which covers the educational continuum from high school through college, medical school and residency training.

DART identifies promising high school students, encourages them to consider careers in health professions, and assists them in attending programs, held in their home states, that introduce them to the health professions.

DART also targets colleges where rural students are more likely to attend and that are "feeder colleges" for health science and medical schools in the region. The program also offers one-week training camps for students interested in serving rural communities.

For students who are further along in their professional training, DART has activities to encourage and support medical students' and residents' interest in rural practice.

Dr. Robert Maudlin, who holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, is assistant program director at the Family Medicine Spokane's residency program. As the associate director of the DART, he spearheads efforts eastern Washington and works with high school students and family practice residents to encourage interest in rural health-care professions.

Funding from DART was instrumental in creating a mini medical school for rural high school students.

According to Maudlin, "The mini medical school builds on the realization that one of the best things we as health-care providers can accomplish is to give youth a vision of what they can do in health careers."

Dr. Mike Garnett, Rural Training Track site residency coordinator in Goldendale, Wash., worked with the local high school to enlist 14 students with high academic achievement into the mini medical school.

Garnett, three rural training track family practice residents, and one emergency medical technician created five learning stations for the students: operating a treadmill cardiogram, birthing a baby, using an automatic defibrillator, applying and removing a cast, and looking for ulcers in the stomach with a gastroscope. The stations required hands-on participation. Activities ranged from working on the birthing bed and delivering a baby manikin through a model pelvis to applying casts on each other and trying the cast saw. The activities were designed to build the students' interest and confidence. Garnett observed, "There were no casualties."

In Boise, DART-assisted pipeline projects include assigning second- and third-year residents to making presentations on avoiding tobacco use to rural fourth and fifth-grade classes. The "Tar Wars" smoking prevention and cessation program incorporated messages about the importance of professions such as medicine, dentistry, nursing and occupational health to people's well-being. Other outreach efforts in rural Idaho included talking with high school students about health professions to motivate their interest and answer their questions.

Dr. Ted Epperly, director of the DART effort in Boise, said, "Pipeline activities help to get young minds interested in pursuing health-care professions. By generating interest, we enhance the likelihood that these students will return to rural locations to practice their professions."