Community-driven medical education: The rural component

The community-driven approach empowers underserved communities so that they can guide the efforts that will best address their needs. This approach has great potential to restore small-town jobs, leadership, and services without extensive state or federal support programs. The community-driven approach (1) arises from mutual efforts involving both academic and rural communities; (2) selects students from underserved areas; (3) trains learners in underserved communities; (4) stabilizes and supports underserved practices; (5) prepares future generations of physicians for underserved practices; and (6) allows towns to preserve and expand health services, a key factor in keeping current jobs and recruiting new jobs and businesses to small towns. The community-driven approach is not as complex as it seems. The beauty in this approach is that it restores proper relationships, incentives, and emphasis. Successful rural health systems have already discovered many of these principles. They know that the answer for higher quality rural health care is improved working relationships among boards, administrators, physicians, nurses, patients, and community members. Academic health centers need to learn the same lessons by working more closely with rural and underserved communities to continue serving the nation effectively far into the 21st century.