Practice locations of graduates of family physician residency and nurse practitioner programs: considerations within the context of institutional culture and curricular innovation through Titles VII and VIII.

Background: Studies have described the aggregate results of federal funding for health professions education at the national level, but analysis of the long-term impact of institutional participation in these programs has been limited.

Purpose: To describe and assess federally supported curricular innovations at East Tennessee State University designed to promote family medicine and nurse practitioner graduate interest in rural and underserved populations.

Methods: Descriptive analysis of a survey to determine practice locations of nurse practitioner graduates (1992-2002) and graduates of 3 family medicine residencies (1978-2002).

The Appalachian Preceptorship: over two decades of an integrated clinical-classroom experience of rural medicine and Appalachian culture.

There is a need to encourage careers in rural medicine and to prepare potential rural physicians for life in rural communities. The authors describe a program that addresses this need, the Appalachian Preceptorship Program, and report the program's experience from 1985 to 2004. The Appalachian Preceptorship is a four-week summer elective conducted by the Department of Family Medicine of East Tennessee State University (ETSU) that offers students clinical preceptorships in rural areas of southern Appalachia.

A student-run outreach clinic for rural communities in Appalachia.

East Tennessee State University's Department of Family Medicine (DFM) implements a student-run outreach clinic series that addresses health care needs of communities in the southern Appalachians. Offered during the third-year family medicine clerkship, the clinics link academic family physicians and students with community health care providers. Services vary with each community's needs, but include history taking, physical examinations, patient education, and testing.