ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1587912
This article is part of the Research TopicDistributed Training and Rural Health Professions EducationView all 15 articles
Immersion to Impact: Does One or Three Years of Rural Immersion Influence Graduate Clinical Practice Intentions and Locations?
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Rural Health, Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
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Background: Addressing rural healthcare workforce shortages requires evidence-based strategies in medical education. Extended rural immersion programs offer a potential solution, but the optimal duration for fostering long-term regional and rural practice remains unclear.Methods: This retrospective study evaluates the impact of one-year versus three-year rural immersion experiences at the University of Melbourne's Rural Clinical School (RCS) on graduate clinical practice locations of the 2016-2023 graduating cohorts. Using logistic regression analysis, we assessed key predictors of regional and rural practice, including rural immersion duration and intent to practice regionally or rurally.Results: Graduates who completed the three-year rural immersion program were significantly more likely to practice in Modified Monash Model (MMM) 2-7 areas than those with only one year of rural immersion. Intent to practice regionally or rurally and completing a regional/rural internship emerged as strong predictors of regional/rural practice. However, regional/rural intent did not appear to be a strong indicator for students who only completed 1-year of rural immersion. This highlights the importance of the duration of immersion.The study demonstrates the effectiveness of extended rural immersion in increasing regional and rural workforce retention. Findings support further investment in rural medical education, including end-to-end rural training models, which integrates rural exposure across the entire medical education journey. Future research should examine long-term workforce retention and strategies for sustaining rural career pathways.
Keywords: Rural medical workforce, Medical Education, Rural immersion, workforce retention, rural clinical school
Received: 05 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Harvey, Ali, Van Schaik, Develyn and Wright. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Will Harvey, Department of Rural Health, Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
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