Determining rural learning outcomes for medical student placements using a consensus process with rural clinical teachers

ABSTRACT

Short, longer and programmatic rural attachments have developed in a number of medical programmes around the world. However, there is limited literature on the development of the underpinning learning outcomes to guide these attachments. Rural populations are commonly under-served and the specific needs and challenges of rural health care need to be emphasised, as well as encouraging future practice in these areas. Our aim was to produce common rural-specific learning outcomes, aligned with a rationalisation of existing guiding principles and objectives, for our medical student regional-rural programmes. This was achieved through a Delphi technique involving the relevant clinical teachers and supervisors. Forty-nine consenting participants collectively provided 72 learning outcomes which were synthesised down to 16. A consensus process was used to anonymously rate and then rank to reach consensus for the top four learning outcomes. The learning outcomes were placed within the theoretical framework of a ‘pedagogy of place’ based on rurality and triangulated with rural learning outcomes from an Australian study. The four final outcomes were resolved around two areas of ‘place’: geographical and developmental. The co-design approach enabled those involved in providing the rural exposure education to generate appropriate learning outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Students
• medical
• learning outcomes
• primary health care
• rural clinical placements
• Delphi technique
• consensus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee (Ref 022917). The participant information sheet was included in the survey, and response to the online questions was considered to be informed consent. The Delphi rounds were anonymous and complete confidentiality of participants was maintained.

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Funding

The work was not supported by any funding grant.