From Program Participants Regarding The Degree To Which They Benefited From Attending A Rural Career Ladder?

This research provides data from program participants regarding the degree to which they benefited from attending a rural career ladder program. The major controversy with this approach is whether the strategy of youth educational pipeline programs leads to better recruitment and retention in rural medicine (Hancock, Steinbach, Nesbitt, Adler, & Auerswald, 2009). The assumption is the research demonstrates health career ladder programs provide significant opportunities for youth in rural communities to be successful in seeking careers in health care. This case study will test the theory by interviewing students attending a health career ladder program regarding whether or not students were attracted to the health careers by participating

First, the study relies on data from a relatively small number of students in one career programs. Although the number of participants is small, the pilot group interviews probed deeply participants’ perceptions of programs culture, interactions, and supports and triangulated conclusions about these perceptions with data from documents and observations. Second, the purposeful selection of rural student as a single, rich case confounds the contribution of a student intervention education with the contribution to impact the shortage in rural health care and to the success of rural student within the health care field. Nonetheless, through this purposeful sampling strategy, the study provides insights into how students perceive the programs culture, interactions, and supports exploring a career ladder program to impact career choices. Third, the analyses examine the program characteristics, policies, and practices that appear to promote the attainment of rural students in health care at one point in time, without following the actual attainment of these students. The researcher recognizes that there are certain limitations inherent in conducting this research

The shortage of rural health care professionals has been the focus of recent research. Most of this research has identified a failure to adapt to rural practice and rural life as a primary contributor to the lack of rural health care providers. The literature reviewed included studies regarding rural upbringing and programs to promote health careers to youth with the goal that they will serve their communities as physicians. To reverse the trend of individuals who choose not to pursue a career in rural health care, it is important to understand not only the motivational factors and rewards that guide students into a particular career (Zoldoske, 1996), but it may also be critical to research students’ career-decision making processes (Lucas,