Rural Versus Suburban/Urban Experiences in a Family Medicine Preceptorship

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Physician Assistant Studies
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Accreditation mandates robust clinical experiences for Physician Assistant (PA) students.
• PA training involves diverse clinical rotations with preceptors to expose students to various patient cases.
• The Typhon Physician Assistant Student Tracking (PAST) system logs patient encounters for educational assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of the Typhon PAST system for program assessment and research in PA education.
• To analyze the clinical experiences of PA students in rural versus suburban/urban settings during a family medicine preceptorship.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of two years of patient encounter data from the Typhon PAST system.
• Examined encounter characteristics (duration, clinical problems, student responsibility, decision type) and patient demographics (sex, age, race, ICD-9 codes).

Main Results:

• Significant variation in individual PA student experiences was linked to preceptor-student dynamics rather than practice setting (rural vs. urban/suburban).
• Minor differences observed in the percentage of female and elderly (65+) patient encounters between rural and urban/suburban sites.
• High correlation in common clinical problems encountered across both rural and urban/suburban settings.

Conclusions:

• PA student experiences in family medicine rotations differ significantly based on individual preceptors.
• Clinical experiences in rural and urban/suburban settings are largely comparable for PA students.
• The Typhon PAST system effectively tracks student activity and aids in program evaluation and research within PA education.