Rural Clinical Rotations

JABSOM Rural Training Programs

Contact Kelley Withy, MD, PhD at (808) 692-1070 or withy@hawaii.edu.

  • First Year Medical Students

    • Community Health Rotations: available in community health centers in rural areas on Oahu. The major goal of the community health experience is to explore methods for promoting health and improving the quality of life for patients by working with a community organization. (funded through AHEC)

  • Summer Between First and Second Year

    • Clinical Skills Preceptorships: Students can choose to work with preceptors in the community to improve their history taking and physical exam skills. Students are encouraged to work with preceptors in rural areas.
    • Quentin Burdick Interdisciplinary Rural Health Program: This is an interdisciplinary program involving students from nursing, medicine, social work, psychology, and public health. Students are placed in six diff erent rural communities across the State of Hawai‘i. The students partner with rural health associations and community leaders and work toward providing community-based, culturally appropriate health care for rural communities. They also participate in health career activities to educate and motivate high school and community college students about higher education careers in health care.

  • Third Year Medical Students

    • 6L Program: Alternative longitudinal track for students completing their clinical clerkships. Students spend one semester (5-1/2 months) in a rural community completing the out-patient portion of their clinical training. They work one-on-one with individual preceptors in the community. The other semester is spent in urban Honolulu completing their inpatient training. Current out-patient training communities include Hilo, Maui, Kauai, Waimanalo, Leeward Oahu, and Wahiawa.
    • Family Medicine Clerkship: Students completing the traditional clerkship track are generally placed in rural locations for their Family Medicine Clerkship. Students are placed with individual community Family Physicians and are encouraged to go to the Neighbor Islands for this rotation. Clerkship training sites include the Big Island (Hilo, Kamuela, Kona), Maui (Kahalui, Kula, Kihei, Lahaina), Molokai, Lanai, and Kauai (Kapaa, Lihue, Waimea).

  • Fourth Year Medical Students

    • Rural Preceptorships: Students are given the option of doing elective rotations on the Neighbor Islands and in other areas of the Pacifi c Rim. These electives are mainly off ered through the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

  • Family Medicine Residency Program

    • The Family Medicine Residency Program: is establishing a rural training track on the island of Hawai‘i, located in the city of Hilo. The family medicine residents spend one month each in their second and third years of training in Hilo. When the track is implemented, two family residents per year will spend their fi rst year of training on the island of Oahu and will complete their last two years of training in Hilo. If successful, the rural track program could be expanded to the other Neighbor Islands.

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Experience By a Past Student

“It was important for me to see what the practice of medicine would be like on the neighbor islands because I had interest in working there after residency. Now that I experienced the community and health care system there, I feel much more secure in my decision to practice there or in a similar rural community”.

-- Student, 6L Program