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Enhancing Rural Health Professions Education: Experiences and Perspectives of Participants in the VA Rural
Sarah Keithly1, Paige Perry1, Ryan Sterling1
1Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Veterans Health Administration, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Purpose:
Rural health professions education (HPE) is essential to mitigating workforce shortages in rural communities. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Rural Interprofessional Faculty Development Initiative (RIFDI) is a multimodal, longitudinal faculty development program designed to enhance teaching and leadership skills of clinician-educators from multiple professions practicing in primarily rural settings. This qualitative evaluation assessed RIFDI's impact on rural HPE by evaluating participants' experiences and perspectives.
Methods:
We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with RIFDI participants. Interviews focused on their training experiences and perspectives on program implementation and effectiveness. Data were analyzed using a rapid analytic approach combining template and matrix analysis.
Findings:
Three themes illuminated pathways by which RIFDI enhanced rural HPE. First, participants perceived that RIFDI offered practical support for clinician-educators in resource-limited settings, particularly among those involved in nascent HPE programs. Learning within a cross-site, interprofessional community of practice was viewed as especially useful in rural contexts. Second, experiential projects spurred a range of activities to improve rural educational environments, including faculty development offerings, HPE curriculum development, and new rotations. Third, participants described ways in which RIFDI advanced a culture of education in rural facilities, for example by "starting the conversation" about the importance of rural HPE and fueling motivation to support rural education and trainee recruitment.
Conclusions:
Findings demonstrate that a faculty development program can meaningfully strengthen rural HPE capacity in a national health care system. Investing in rural clinician-educators may help cultivate high-quality HPE environments, which existing literature links to improved health workforce recruitment and retention.
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