Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Needs of the many: Northern Ontario School of Medicine students' experience of generalism and rural practice.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) student and graduate experience of generalism in rural practice, in the context of a growing discourse on generalism.

DESIGN: Qualitative analysis.

SETTING: Northern Ontario School of Medicine in multiple sites across northern Ontario, which is the NOSM campus.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 37 graduating medical students and 9 practising NOSM graduates.

METHODS: The Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research and NOSM tracking studies use mixed methods drawing on data from various sources. This paper reports on an arts-based study using semistructured interviews.

MAIN FINDINGS: Key themes from student observations include an affinity for the northern Ontario environment and a recognition that rural medicine involves a broad scope of practice. Students from NOSM consider generalist care to be a comprehensive service with a strong focus on responding to the health needs of the communities they serve. Beyond primary care, a rural medicine "true generalist" is viewed as a complete package-a physician who provides care ranging from promoting prevention to performing specialist tasks.

CONCLUSION: Rural practitioners, particularly in family medicine, are extended generalists with a broad scope of practice guided by the health needs of the communities they serve. The NOSM students' and graduates' experience of rural generalism is positive and highly influential in determining their career directions, including specialty, scope, and location of practice. The generalist approach of NOSM might be effective beyond rural applications and an advantageous approach for foundational medical education. Students and graduates report that NOSM's distributed community-engaged learning prepares them well for rural generalist practice.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app