Clinical Rotations

The NorthWest AHEC serves both the academic and local community through off campus rotations.

The community based faculty are local healthcare professionals who agree to accept students into their practice for a short time, typically four weeks. It is here the students merge academic theory with the real health needs of people by seeing patients under supervision. The community based faculty often report that they learn by having the students work with them. Not only does the community based faculty provide an opportunity for the student to share diagnoses and treatment but more importantly they share knowledge, dedication and a spirit of service not easily conveyed in the classroom. We owe our community based faculty our sincere gratitude for helping introduce the healthcare professionals of tomorrow to the health needs of Kentucky today. When in your doctors office, you see a notice of students in attendance, realize that they are providing for you and the future health of our country.

Local and national news coverage continues to depict a critical shortage in nursing, allied health and medical fields. Being prepared to cope with this situation may be one of the biggest challenges facing our society. Currently 3,000 mostly minority and rural communities in the country do not have enough providers to meet their basic medical, dental and mental health needs. In addition, only ten percent of the healthcare workforce is comprised of minorities who are expected to grow to 30% of the national population by 2020. This relates directly to accessibility to quality health care for the underserved. Professional minorities provide more care for the poor and uninsured and patients of their own ethnic group than others. We must therefore engage and prepare our young people for a variety of healthcare professions. Setting up clinical rotations for health profession students from the University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky as well as supporting other health career educational institutions, like Bellarmine, Spalding Universities is a big job that covers the eight counties in the Northwest region. AHEC staff also set up rotations for third and fourth year medical students, from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, along with residents and other health professional students.