|
|
|
By Sharon Parker, University of Minnesota (Excerpts of this article reprinted with permission from Pictures of Health, a University of Minnesota publication.)
PAHCS Rural Health School site coordinator Todd Lemke, second from left, poses with RHS participants (left to right) Claudine Kubesh, Melanie Monnie, and Katie Sutter while visiing Gold'n Plump in Cold Spring. Operating in seven sites throughout greater Minnesota, the RHS is a leading-edge education program where students from a variety of health disciplines immerse themselves in a hands-on, real-world experience that incorporates the latest in health-practice protocols. They use electronic communication technologies for education and patient care. They also model the kind of interdisciplinary teamwork that other programs can only aspire to. And with the addition of veterinary medicine and dentistry students this spring, and the past participation of the School of Public Health, the RHS now includes all the AHC disciplines, offering even greater benefits to students and the communities they serve. The program was established by the Minnesota Legislature in 1996 to deploy health care practitioners to underserved small towns in Minnesota. Since then it has trained 197 students from medical school, nursing, pharmacy, social work, and other disciplines, of whom more than 65 percent have chosen to practice in rural areas, says Vickery French, RHS program coordinator. Some of those graduates, like Todd Lemke, take positions at the very sites where they were trained. "The Rural Health School program was an important part of my decision to practice in a rural environment," Lemke says. "Seeing interdisciplinary practice both in Paynesville and Moose Lake, where I attended RHS programs, enhanced my desire to work in a rural setting." It is the interdisciplinary practice that is perhaps the most significant way in which this program benefits both students and patients, and leads the way to the future of medicine as well. In an article in Minnesota Medicine last June, nursing professors Linda Lindeke and Derryl E. Block stressed the importance of teamwork in future health care practice. "Well-functioning teams increase communication across systems, improve care coordination, decrease duplication of services, and focus system efforts on patients," they wrote. "Health professionals must work side by side in practice for the best interests of the patients they care for," Lindeke explains, "but experiences during their educational years that prepare them to do this are virtually nonexistent in most health profession curriculae. There are no similar programs [to that offered by the RHS]." "Interdisciplinary training is extremely valuable to students regardless of where they end up after graduation. Except in the Rural Health School," says Lemke, "never in my three years of pharmacy school did I discuss a case with medical, nursing, social work, or other students."
|
In places like Paynesville, health professional students in the Rural Health School can take advantage of the latest training. In that central Minnesota town of about 2,300, a team of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and dietitians work together with diabetic patients to set goals and determine the best therapy. "It is one of the few Minnesota rural diabetes education and management teams accredited by the American Diabetes Association," says Todd Lemke, site coordinator for the AHCs Rural Health School.