Influence of a rural interprofessional education placement on the rural health workforce: working in primary care, rural settings, and with Māori
Ben Darlow
1 * , Melanie Brown 1 , Eileen McKinlay 1 , Lesley Gray 1 , Gordon Purdie 2 , Sue Pullon 1
1 Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice, University of Otago Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
2 Department of Public Health, University of Otago Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
Journal of Primary Health Care 15(1) 78-83 https://doi.org/10.1071/HC22136
Published: 20 January 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Introduction: Pre-registration interprofessional rural immersion programmes provide students with first-hand insight into challenges faced in rural clinical practice and can influence future practice intentions. The impact of short rural and hauora Māori interdisciplinary placements on early healthcare careers is unknown.
Aim: Explore whether a 5-week rural interprofessional education programme influenced graduates’ choices to work in primary care, rurally, and with Māori patients.
Methods: We conducted a survey-based, non-randomised trial of graduates from eight healthcare disciplines who did (n = 132) and did not (n = 479) attend the Tairāwhiti interprofessional education rural programme with hauora Māori placements. Participants were surveyed at 1-, 2-, and 3-years’ post-registration. Self-reported practice location and vocation were analysed with mixed-model logistic regression. Free-text comments were analysed with Template Analysis.
Results: We did not identify any measurable impact on rural or community workforce participation at 3-years’ post-registration. Free-text analysis indicated that a short rural interprofessional immersion placement had long-term self-perceived impacts on desire and skills to work in rural locations, and on desire and ability to work with Māori and embrace Māori models of health.
Discussion: Our study suggests that short rural immersion placements do not increase rural workforce participation during early healthcare careers. Three-years’ post-graduation may be too early to determine whether rural placements help to address rural health workforce needs. Reports from rural placement participants of increased ability to care for people from rural backgrounds, even when encountered in a city, suggest that assessment of practice location may not adequately capture the benefits of rural placement programmes.
Keywords: free-text analysis, health workforce, indigenous health, interdisciplinary placement, interprofessional education, longitudinal survey, non-randomised trial, rural health.
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