Considerations for Selecting Applicants to Rural Medicine Programs

Abstract

The selection of medical students destined for rural practice is important in order to help provide access to care for the 20% of the US population who live in rural America.  Knowing which medical school applicants will go into rural practice is an inexact science, although the objective predictive characteristics of future rural doctors are well known and evident in the literature.  The role of rural program directors is to identify which applicants will likely choose a FM residency, done primarily by identifying which rural predictive characteristics the applicants possess. Admissions committee members are not expected to determine the likely practice locations of rural applicants, and need only have the responsibility of determining which applicants should become physicians.