The Rural Perinatal Clinic: Serving Diversity
Since July of 1999 the Idaho State University Family Medicine Residency Program has been placing one resident from each year in Rural Perinatal Clinics in community health centers in Aberdeen and American Falls, Idaho. The development of these clinics was funded by a $400,000 Residency Training in Primary Care grant. Because of their success in improving resident maternity care education and meeting the needs of an underserved population the clinics are being continued after the end of grant funding in June of 2002.
The primary goal of the Rural Perinatal Clinic project is to enhance the maternity care training of family practice residents in a setting that serves a large migrant and seasonal farm worker population, thereby preparing them to care for Idaho’s culturally diverse rural population. In addition to the Rural Perinatal Clinic the grant has allowed us to provide a culturally appropriate, interdisciplinary health education and case management program for Hispanic and Native American inpatients admitted to the Residency medicine service and also institute a cross-cultural medicine didactic curriculum.
Over the three years of the grant the numbers of prenatal visits at the rural perinatal clinic sites increased by fifty percent. Access to maternity care services for Spanish-speaking and uninsured women was increased. The quality of prenatal care as measured by the Kessner Index was improved.
Two recent graduates have fulfilled the intent of the Rural Perinatal Clinic experience after graduation by accepting positions in the community health centers where they served as residents. We actively recruit resident candidates who are Hispanic, Native American or bilingual in Spanish in order to continue this badly needed service.