Regional Medical Campuses in Canada and the United States: A Systematic Review

Introduction The development of Regional Medical Campuses (RMCs) in Northern America has been a response to the call to increase undergraduate medical student enrollment and meet the societal needs of healthcare access by addressing physician shortages in underserved and in rural areas. We studied the literature on undergraduate RMCs in US and Canada to identify types of studies and leading themes. Methods Literature searches were performed within the following databases: Medline OVIDSP, Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews OVIDSP, CINAHL EBSCO, ERIC EBSCO, PsycInfo EBSCO, and Web of Science ISI. Articles were included in the review if they discussed undergraduate medical education in allopathic schools in Northern America (US and Canada), were written in English and related to regional medical campuses. Each article was reviewed and assessed by two of the authors, and information extracted from the literature was thematically analyzed. Results Fifty (50) articles were selected for inclusion in the final review. All selected articles fit the definition of Regional Medical Campus developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Regional Medical Campuses (GRMC). The GRMC has defined that RMCs could be of four distinct types: basic science campuses, where students study pre-clinical (basic sciences) courses; clinical campuses, where clerkship training is completed; longitudinal model (for example, Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships) and, usually 4-year campuses, where both pre-clinical and clinical curriculum is delivered. Thirty-six (36) of the reviewed articles (72%) specifically stated that the development of RMCs was in response to the physician shortage and limited access to healthcare in rural areas. Twenty-five (25) articles discussed program models that spanned both basic science and clinical curricula. Of the 50 articles that were included in the final review, 15 (30%) utilized descriptive methodology, and 35 (70%) involved quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research, with some being considered “program evaluations.” Four major themes emerged from the reviewed articles: workforce, social accountability, distributed medical education, and regional versus main campus settings. Conclusion This study is the first comprehensive literature review of publications on Regional Medical Campuses and thus provides a benchmark and direction for future research in the RMCs topic area.