Bush bound: Cracking the code for high-quality rural health placements

Longstanding workforce shortages, increases in university qualifying programs and student numbers have increased interest in rural speech pathology student placements. Student placements in rural locations are a common strategy to build the future rural health workforce. Understanding the determinants of high-quality rural student placements may help leverage this strategy (Quilliam et al., 2024). University staff who have a role in designing, administering, delivering, and/or evaluating rural health student placements have a wealth of knowledge and their voices are largely missing in the literature (Green et al., 2022). This multidisciplinary research investigated the key determinants of high-quality health student placements in regional, rural, and remote Australia from the perspectives of university staff.
This study used a convergent mixed methods design. One component consisted of an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach using surveys and semi-structured interviews. The second component consisted of a case study ECOUTER mind mapping methodology. This presentation will focus on the findings from the first component.
The findings from the survey responses (n=121) indicate six key determinants of high-quality rural health student placements. These include 1) cultural safety training, 2) supervisor training, 3) interest from health professionals in student supervision, 4) communication between the student, supervisor, and university, 5) safe and affordable student accommodation, and 6) personal safety. The qualitative findings from the semi-structured interviews (n=10) delved deeper into these determinants and four themes were generated related to engagement with learning, structuring learning, opportunities to grow clinical skills in a rural context, and connection.

This is the first Australian-wide multidisciplinary study exploring features of high-quality rural health student placements. These findings can positively influence the design and delivery of speech pathology student placements across Australia. The results will be of interest to all stakeholders involved in the provision of speech pathology student placements, including universities, workplaces, and practice educators.