Nature or nurture: the effect of undergraduate rural clinical rotations on pre-existent rural career choice likelihood as measured by the SOMERS Index

Objective: Do undergraduate rural clinical rotations increase the likelihood of medical students to choose a rural career once pre‐existent likelihood is accounted for? Design: A prospective, controlled quasi‐experiment using self‐paired scores on the SOMERS Index of rural career choice likelihood, before and after 3 years of clinical rotations in either mainly rural or mainly urban locations. Setting: Monash University medical school, Australia. Participants: Fifty‐eight undergraduate‐entry medical students (35% of the 2002 entry class). Main outcome measures: The SOMERS Index of rural career choice likelihood and its component indicators. Results: There was an overall decline in SOMERS Index score (22%) and in each of its components (12–41%). Graduating students who attended rural rotations were more likely to choose a rural career on graduation (difference in SOMERS score: 24.1 (95% CI, 15.0–33.3) P < 0.0001); however, at entry, students choosing rural rotations had an even greater SOMERS score (difference: 27.1 (95% CI, 18.2–36.1) P < 0.0001). Self‐paired pre–post reductions in likelihood were not affected by attending mainly rural or urban rotations, nor were there differences based on rural background alone or sex. Conclusions: While rural rotations are an important component of undergraduate medical training, it is the nature of the students choosing to study in rural locations rather than experiences during the course that is the greater influence on rural career choice. In order to improve the rural medical workforce crisis, medical schools should attract more students with pre‐existent likelihood to choose a rural career. The SOMERS Index was found to be a useful tool for this quantitative analysis.