Transitioning to rural practice together: a rural fellowship model (in 6 Ps)

The Rural Fellowship program demonstrates an effective model to support early career healthcare providers as they begin practice in rural communities in western North Carolina through academic opportunities, personal growth, and professional development. Implementation of this model has demonstrated the success of a rural retention model over a 6-year period. This model has the potential to target an array of clinical providers and disciplines. We started with family medicine and have expanded to psychiatry, obstetrics, pharmacy, and nursing. This study demonstrated that this model supports clinical providers during the critical transition period from residency to practice. Targeting the most important stage of one's medical training, the commencement of professional practice, this is a scalable model for other rural-based health professions education sites where rural recruitment and retention remain a problem.