The East Texas Area Health Education Center (AHEC) SEARCH Project will facilitate health professions students and residents to serve on multidisciplinary healthcare teams in underserved communities.
The SEARCH project will target:
• 40 Primary Care and Allied Health Student/Resident Participant Placements
• 30 Care for the Underserved Training Sites
• 35 Care of the Underserved Preceptors/Mentors
• 7 Academic Partners with SEARCH Participants.
Objective 1. Academic Partners - Engage academic partners to incorporate care of the underserved into curricular offerings through traditional required courses, elective courses, and new innovative courses, from among the Texas medical schools, graduate nursing programs, physician assistant programs, dental schools, dental hygienist programs, social work and counseling programs, as demonstrated by offering primary care clinical rotations in underserved populations.
Objective 2. Training Sites Partners - Recruit clinical training sites from among the Texas federally designated and other underserved clinical services sites with appropriate learning opportunities to serve as multidisciplinary educational environments for primary care and allied health professions learners.
Objective 3. Students and Residents - Recruit students and residents from among the specified SEARCH primary care and allied health professions programs that are more likely to select serving underserved populations as part of their career choices to participate in the enhanced learning opportunities of the SEARCH program.
Objective 4. AHEC SEARCH Infrastructure - Develop the resources and processes to support enhanced learning opportunities of the SEARCH program utilizing the nine regional centers of the East Texas AHEC program as the primary linkage between academic health science programs and underserved clinical training sites.
Funding Period: September 30, 2009 through September 29, 2012
Grant provides minimal support to
• academic program fostering SEARCH participation for student meetings, marketing, etc.
• training site placement for educational activity support
• student/resident for reimbursement of travel expenses and housing