FAQ's for Rural-PRIME Prospective Students
You will be invited to apply to Rural-PRIME when you submit your secondary application to UC Davis.Your application will be screened and considered for the Rural-PRIME program. Qualified applicants may be invited to interview with Rural-PRIME, following acceptance to the School of Medicine.
Following your Rural-PRIME interview, your application will be reviewed by the Rural-PRIME selection committee. Your application will be ranked based on the strength of the rural aspects of your application: rural experience, knowledge and interests.
If an applicant is offered a position in Rural-PRIME, he/she has until the May 15th deadline to accept the Rural-PRIME offer.
A maximum of twelve students are selected each admissions cycle to join Rural-PRIME.
Medical students in Rural-PRIME take the same required medical school classes as their classmates with some contextualized to rural health. In addition to the regular curriculum, Rural-PRIME students will have the opportunity to participate in additional sessions focusing on health issues related to underserved populations, advanced training in telemedicine, skills and procedure sessions in the Center for Virtual Care, extra shadowing opportunities with rural mentors and individual and group advising.
Rural-PRIME students are taught in their Doctoring small groups by rural physicians and are also paired with community physicians for their Preceptorship visits. Core experiences in Rural-PRIME focus on rural health, public health, health informatics and underserved populations. Students spend approximately six months of their third year in rural communities. Rural-PRIME students tend to be interested in various underserved populations, Latino health, and /or wilderness medicine. Students will have additional opportunities to explore their specific area of interest with electives during their fourth year.
Rural-PRIME students are encouraged to complete a master's degree between the third and fourth years of medical school. UC Davis offers a variety of master's degrees to choose from. The Master in Public Health and the Health Informatics Program are both popular options with our students. These programs and others can be found at:
http://gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/programs/
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/informatics/
http://mph.ucdavis.edu
Students may also elect to complete a research program, such as our Clinical and Translational Science Centers’ T32 Pre-Doctoral Clinical Research Training Program.
We will work individually with students to address their specific career goals when planning for a master's program.
We are committed to finding the right balance between creating a special group of students interested in working with the rural underserved while at the same time ensuring that you are integrated into your medical school class. Rural-PRIME students tend to be leaders within the School of Medicine and actively involved in class activities.
Additional financial assistance may be available. Rural-PRIME is working to expand funding opportunities available to PRIME students, particularly to cover the master’s year.