Effectiveness of Educational Strategies Preparing Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, and Certified Nurse-Midwives for Underserved Areas

A study of physician assistant, nurse practitioner, and certified nurse midwifery programs was undertaken to identify and assess the effectiveness of recruitment, educational, and deployment strategies that programs use to prepare practitioners for medically underserved areas. The 51 programs studied were those having mission statements or known track records relating to this goal. A total of 170 interviews were conducted with faculty, students, graduates, and employers from 9 programs visited onsite and 42 programs surveyed by telephone. All programs had some recruitment and training activities in underserved sites. Only about half of the programs were able to submit data on their graduates' practice settings and specialties