PLACEMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE FOR SUMMER 2011

The Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP) is a program of the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSM) in partnership with the WWAMI Programs and AHECs in Montana, Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming and Washington.

R/UOP is a four-week, elective immersion experience and an opportunity for students between the first and second years of medical school to be placed with a physician preceptor in a rural or urban underserved clinical site. During their 4-week rotation, students live in rural or urban underserved communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. They work side-by-side with local physicians providing health care to underserved populations.

R/UOP encourages primary care careers in underserved communities by providing students with hands-on experiences in clinical practices; in addition to exposure to the rural or underserved community. Preceptors are practicing physicians in rural sites or urban clinics serving the underserved. Physicians serving as preceptors are primary care physicians (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology and General Practice).

In 2010

• Approximately 75 Montana physicians volunteered their time to serve as R/UOP preceptors.
• 31 medical students from the WWAMI region did clinical rotations in Montana through R/UOP. Seventeen of these participants were Montana WWAMI students.