Factors impacting the solo remote placement experiences of undergraduate James Cook University medical students: A mixed-methods pilot study.

Objective: To determine the factors impacting the experiences of James Cook University medical students on solo placements in remote towns.

Design: This 2018 pilot study used an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to explore the recent solo remote placement experiences of James Cook University medical students. Qualitative interviews were performed initially to elicit context sensitive themes for the self administered survey.

Prevocational Integrated Extended Rural Clinical Experience (PIERCE): cutting through the barriers to prevocational rural medical education.

Introduction: Despite an increase in the number of undergraduate training positions, Australia faces a critical shortage of medical practitioners in regional, rural and remote communities. Extended rural clinical placements have shown great utility in undergraduate medical curricula, increasing training capacity and providing comparable educational outcomes while promoting rural medicine as a career. The Prevocational Integrated Extended Rural Clinical Experience (PIERCE) was developed to increase the training capacity of the Queensland Rural Generalist Pathway (QRGP) and strengthen trainee commitment to rural practice by offering an authentic, extended 15-week rural term that provided an integrated experience in anaesthetics, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics, while meeting the requirements for satisfactory completion of prevocational rural generalist training.

Chronic Disease and Health Risk Behaviors Among Rural Agricultural Workforce in Queensland.

Introduction: Little is known of the lifestyle behaviors and prevalence of chronic disease in the Australian agricultural workforce. This study aimed to assess behavioral risk factors and the prevalence of chronic disease among attendees of agricultural events in rural Queensland.

Methods: Data on lifestyle risk factors and prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases were collected from participants in four separate cross-sectional studies in rural southern Queensland.