In early May 2008, while students all over The University of Arizona campus looked forward to their convocations, a graduation ceremony of another kind took place in Tucson. Health-care professionals from rural Arizona communities traveled to the UA College of Medicine for an evaluation of teaching skills they have developed over the past academic year using telemedicine technologies in the Rural Faculty Development Fellowship.

The fellows were presented with challenging scenarios involving students in the health-care professions and were videotaped and offered feedback on their treatment of each situation. Following a graduation celebration, they returned to their communities, where they will mentor and help to develop future health-care practitioners for Arizona’s rural and underserved populations.

 “A skilled, enthusiastic mentor may well spark interest in the students in a health-care career in rural and underserved areas,” says Paul Gordon, MD, of the UA Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Dr. Gordon and Tejal Parikh, MD, also with the Department of Family and Community Medicine, developed the Rural Faculty Development Fellowship as an addition to a long-standing faculty-development program within their department. The fellowship was prompted in part by Arizona’s Rural Health Professions Program (RHPP). In 1997, in answer to the need for more health-care professionals in rural Arizona, the state of Arizona authorized the creation of RHPP, designating funds to the UA College of Medicine; Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University and the UA advance practice nursing programs; and the UA College of Pharmacy. At the College of Medicine, RHPP places students with mentors at a rural site for three longitudinal rotations in their medical education: between their first and second years of medical school, during a clerkship rotation and/or elective in year three and as a fourth-year elective.

During RHPP’s first years, preceptors in the program either came to Tucson at the expense of RHPP for education about teaching, or they participated in sessions with RHPP staff who traveled to several regions of the state to provide training near RHPP preceptors’ communities. These sessions were conducted on Saturdays, to minimize disruption of the rural physicians’ patient-care schedules.

In 2001, Drs. Gordon and Parikh collaborated with the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) to establish the rural component of the faculty development program, creating the fellowship that would assist UA faculty and improve teaching in rural areas.

Offering interactive faculty development through distance learning, the Rural Faculty Development Fellowship enables preceptors in rural communities to participate in monthly teaching seminars from telemedicine sites within 10 miles of their offices. The three-hour seminars cover a range of topics that promote effective teaching and support interprofessional development. The use of telemedicine technologies reduces the need for long-distance travel to just two occasions: Approximately halfway through the seminar series, the fellows meet in person at one of ATP’s telemedicine sites, and, at the end of the series, they participate in the teaching evaluation administered at the College of Medicine in Tucson.

Prior to this year, 41 physicians practicing in rural Arizona communities – many of them UA College of Medicine alumni – completed the program to become mentors to UA medical students.

One of this year’s fellows, Gail Guerrero-Tucker, MD, a family practice physician at Gila Valley Clinic in Safford, not only is a UA College of Medicine alumna, but she is among the first UA medical students to have participated in RHPP. Her return to the rural community to practice medicine prompted RHPP Director and Assistant Dean for Medical Student Education Carol Galper, EdD, to comment, “ See – it works!”

This year, with support from the Arizona Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program, the Rural Faculty Development Fellowship expanded its representation to include preceptors practicing in urban-underserved as well as rural communities, who will mentor students from the UA Colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy, as well as the College of Medicine. In addition to Dr. Guerrero-Tucker, fellows who completed the program this year include nurse practitioners Audrie Russell-Kibble, UA College of Nursing alumna, practicing at St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary’s Santa Rosa Clinic; Ashlyn Dumais, San Pedro Family Clinic in Benson; and Jimmie McCraw, UA College of Nursing alumna and sole practitioner in Benson. Pharmacists Richard Trepanier, a UA alumnus practicing at the Medicine Shoppe in Benson, and Maya Thompson, with the Sells Indian Hospital, also completed the program.

Drs. Gordon and Parikh look forward to increasing the number of preceptors in rural and underserved Arizona by training as many as 10 new teachers in the health-care professions each year.