Medical students visit rural South Dakota

     Three communities will begin welcoming medical students in March, 2027 as USD’s Frontier and Rural Medicine program, FARM expands to 17 students. 

     FARM is a program where students spend 11 to 12 months in a rural community. This occurs during their second and third year (Pillar 2) of med school which helps them to complete their clinical rotation. 

     “FARM was created to help our workforce,” said Jason Wickersham, M.D., SSOM associate dean of rural medicine and professor of family medicine, “We need primary care physicians out in rural areas.” 

     Wickersham explained that FARM aids in showing students that there is great medicine in rural areas and being in primary care is a very rewarding profession. 

     At the clinical site students get to practice many different sides of rural medicine while gaining a better understanding of what it looks like to be a physician in a rural setting.  “The relationships you build in that rural area are far beyond what you get on the main campus,” said Wickersham.

     Having close contact with instructors and the health care team allows for more hands-on training and interactions that Pillar 2 students might not otherwise receive. When the students finish their FARM rotation they will move into Pillar 3 of medical school.

     In Pillar 3, students are starting to look for different residency options where they need letters of recommendation from different physicians. A student who was in FARM has a better chance of getting an impactful letter than those who aren’t in FARM.

     “If I write a student a letter, then I say, I spent practically every day for a year with that student, that carries a lot more weight than if I did a two week rotation with a physician and he writes me a letter,” Wickersham said. 

     While at the rural site students are encouraged to participate in different activities within the community. They are also required to find a need that they want to address and come up with a solution for it. FARM helps the students to gain knowledge of different processes and community engagement that they might not otherwise receive.

     “That individualized relationship you build with your attending physician, the hands-on one-on-one training are all kinds of unique things about FARM,” Wickersham said. 

     As of now there are 13 students at the seven active sites. Current standing locations are Vermillion, Parkston, Chamberlain, Pier, Mowbridge, Millbank and Spearfish. The three communities being added to the list include Mitchell, Brookings, and Aberdeen. 

     Wickersham hopes that each site, present and future, will grow to at least two students if not more. 

     In the past, there were two more sites however some of the rural communities don’t do obstetrics. Obstetrics is the focused care on the journey of pregnancy. Being able to provide care to mothers during their entirety of pregnancy is one of the FARM students’ requirements. Without obstetrics they had to stop sending students which resulted in a decrease of students in the program.

     The new sites will hopefully aid in the overload of students who want to participate in FARM. “We are having a little problem with the number of students wanting to be in Sioux Falls and having enough physicians to teach them, so this will help us a little bit to offload that Sioux Falls campus,” Wickersham said.

     Wickersham hopes the FARM program will continue to expand and grow and believes in the future of it. 

     “We’re getting students to see what great medicine occurs out here,” said Wickersham, “We’re building a primary work force.”