Advancing Rural Generalist Training: The Northern Regional Integrated Clerkship, a Blended Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship Innovation in Northern British Columbia.

Abstract

The Northern Medical Program (NMP) is the most rural site of the University of British Columbia's distributed medical school. Situated in northern British Columbia, Canada, the NMP strives for health equity by training physicians to meet the needs of northern, rural and Indigenous patients with innovative approaches to curriculum delivery which maintain comparability to the rest of the program and alignment with the assessment structure. Medical schools have a social accountability mandate to train physicians to serve the needs of rural and Indigenous peoples, to address the challenges of rural recruitment and retention, and to eliminate health inequities. Here we describe the creation of a new blended clerkship which places students in a small rural community for a 6-month longitudinal integrated clerkship and in a small urban community for a 6-month rotational clerkship. This new clerkship provides a unique opportunity for learners to learn and experience rural generalist medicine while meeting the accreditation standard of comparability. Early implementation has shown promise in enhancing rural medical education while maintaining curricular comparability, with positive reception from students and faculty.