Twelve Tips for Engaging Medical Students in Rural-Focused Research

The future of rural healthcare depends on training the future rural health workforce, and on rural health research that can guide clinical and policy decisions in rural spaces. Promotion of rural healthcare careers usually focuses on clinical aspects of care, and research may be seen as a lower priority. Supporting students to be involved in rural focused research offers the opportunity to broaden the pool of potentially rural interested students, and to develop research and scholarship skills and capacity in the future rural workforce.

We identify twelve tips that medical schools can adopt to foster medical student participation in rural-focused research and thus promote student interest in rural healthcare and rural medical practice. These recommendations are based on a review of literature and our personal experience of conducting rural-focused research activities with medical students.

Through these twelve tips, we provide a practical framework for enhancing undergraduate medical student exposure to rural-focused research to foster research capacity. This has potential to inspire student interest in future rural medical practice and could contribute to alleviate workforce and research gaps in rural areas.