Rural health

Are you curious about rural health and do you want to make a difference to the health of your communities? We provide our future students with rural training opportunities. You’ll gain exposure to the range of health careers available in rural areas, get insight into rural practice and understand the differences in supporting healthcare needs in rural and urban communities.

A career in rural health can be really rewarding and offers experiences typically not found in urban areas. As a student, you will experience enhanced coordination and cooperation between professionals from different disciplines.

Our medical programme offers a rural stream to students interested in rural medicine. The stream develops rural confidence by providing early clinical exposure to rural medicine, tutorials and rural immersion activities that develop familiarity with the communities of rural training sites, create collegiality with previous stream students and rural clinicians plus encourage a sense of outdoor adventure.

Rural stream students have pastoral support, support to develop rural electives and selectives and have priority for rural placement in the clinical years.

Students in our health programmes have the opportunity to undertake rural placements where they can engage with rural communities, form connections with community health practitioners, and learn what it is like to practise in a rural setting. 

Rural communities offer health students a fantastic hands-on clinical learning experience in a supportive, innovative and patient-centred environment. You will have greater exposure to a wide range of medical conditions where you can build your confidence in delivering patient care. You’ll also learn about Hauora Māori and the differences in regional and rural healthcare. You’ll test yourself in ways you may not have expected.

We work closely with health providers in regional and rural locations to provide the highest quality training experience. Many of our clinical placements take place at our clinical campuses and sites located across the North Island.

Our renowned regional-rural programmes in Hokianga and Whakatāne bring together undergraduate students from different health disciplines and tertiary institutes to learn in a rural environment.

Over five weeks, students in this programme gain clinical experience and develop innovative ways to assess the care of patients and families in their own communities, under the guidance of local healthcare professionals and academic staff.

The programme includes students from medicine, nursing and physiotherapy, pharmacy, paramedic, midwifery, psychology, social work, oral health therapist, occupational therapists, dentists, medical imaging, speech language therapist and optometry.

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Medical students in their fifth year will have an opportunity to spend a full year working in one of four rural communities.

Students will gain hands-on experience across different disciplines on placements at rural general practices and/or hospitals. And will build confidence in delivering patient care. Through the placements, students have exposure to patients, and wide range of medical conditions, and are mentored by community health providers and visiting specialists. They also gain experience in history taking, examination techniques and undertaking procedures.

The rural sites offered in the programme are Wellsford, Hauraki-Coromandel, Te Kuiti and Hāwera.

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*Limited spaces – currently only available for MBChB students.