The Healthcare Travelling Roadshow: a qualitative study of a rural community engagement initiative in Canada.

INTRODUCTION: Youth from rural communities face significant challenges in the pursuit of healthcare training. Healthcare trainees with a rural background are more likely than those without to practice rurally as healthcare professionals. The Healthcare Travelling Roadshow (HCTRS) is an initiative in Canada that provides rural youth with exposure to healthcare careers, while providing healthcare students with exposure to rural opportunities, and an interprofessional education experience. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first description of an initiative for rural university-high school healthcare career outreach that involves near-peer teaching, highly interactive sessions, and an interprofessional focus. METHODS: Ten HCTRSs took place throughout northern rural and remote British Columbia between 2010 and 2017. Questionnaires were delivered to youth in a pilot research project in 2010. Healthcare students and community members completed questionnaires for ongoing program evaluation from 2010 to 2017. Quantitative elements were graded on a five-point Likert scale. Qualitative elements were analyzed thematically. RESULTS: Participants indicated that the program was very successful (4.71, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.63-4.79), would likely encourage healthcare students to consider rural practice (4.12, 95%CI 3.98-4.26), and that it inspired local youth to consider careers in health care much or very much (4.45, 95%CI 4.35-4.55). Qualitative analysis led to description of four themes: (1) sincerity and interactivity sparking enthusiasm, (2) learning through rural exposure and community engagement, (3) healthcare student personal growth and (4) interprofessional collaboration and development. Open-ended feedback identified successes outside of the primary goals and illustrated how this program could act in a multi-faceted way to promote healthcare recruitment and retention. Constructive comments emphasized the importance of taking a balanced approach to planning the HCTRS, ensuring the goals of the HCTRS are best met, while meeting the needs of the host communities as much as possible. CONCLUSIONS: The HCTRS is an interdisciplinary experience that successfully engages rural youth, healthcare students, and community stakeholders. Participants consistently indicated that it encouraged rural youth towards healthcare careers and healthcare students towards rural practice. Success of the program requires meaningful engagement with multiple academic and community stakeholders.

Inspiring rural youth to consider healthcare careers through an interprofessional healthcare traveling roadshow.

There are well-documented shortages of healthcare providers in rural and remote communities worldwide, and these shortages correlate with inequitable health outcomes for rural peoples. Despite a wide array of efforts to remedy the issue, these shortages persist to this day. The Healthcare Traveling Roadshow (HCTRS) is a grassroots initiative that began in 2010 to help address the shortage of healthcare providers in rural communities throughout British Columbia. Since its inception, the HCTRS has been predicated on three evidence-based guiding principles which have been shown to markedly increase the rate at which healthcare students choose to practice rurally. These principles are: (1) to showcase healthcare careers as viable and realistic options for rural youth (high school students) using interactive stations and near-peer teaching; (2) to expose healthcare students to rural communities and showcase them as a potential opportunity for their future practice; and (3) to provide a unique interprofessional experience to healthcare students from diverse healthcare careers and backgrounds. Through the synergy of these three principles the HCTRS aims to increase the longitudinal recruitment and retention of healthcare workers in underserved rural communities. This paper will share our experience from 15 years of running this initiative, for those hoping to implement similar programs in other areas of the world.