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 Working in the Community
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Site Guide

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In your training program, you are developing a broad range of skills and knowledge that will undoubtedly be of great value to you in your field experience and your future practice.  You are no doubt eager to put your knowledge and skills to use.

Nonetheless, you will undoubtedly discover gaps in your knowledge or situations for which your education has not adequately prepared you.  In these instances, the willingness to seek help is essential - as is a sense of humor!  Staff in rural settings are typically glad to be of help as are your fellow students, including those in other disciplines.

On this page you will find ideas and strategies for having a successful field experience.  The following suggestions may help you increase your effectiveness and earn the respect of the community.  If you have ideas or suggestions that you don’t see here please click here to share them with us.

In the next section you will find video clips from “An Interdisciplinary Team Experience in Rural North Carolina”, a tape produced by Rebecca Hunter, M.Ed. and Margie Britnell, M.P.H. to help prepare students from different disciplines for projects in rural areas.  Click on the links below to view the clips:

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Although you may expect to learn from completing the project you’re assigned, it is important to remember that you will learn from other students, learn about other disciplines, and learn the importance of interdisciplinarity.

You will also expect to earn from teachers and preceptors, but there are many opportunities to learn from people you might not expect.

The anxiety that comes from being a student but trying to fill the role of a professional is a common one, maybe one course you took applies to what you’re doing and you feel that your just out there in space and it’s hard to define your role.

Although you may already have ideas about people are like where you are going it is important that you be willing to broaden your perspective and abandon your preconcieved ideas.

Finally, to make the most of your experience, get involved with the community, make sure that you’re learning about yourself, you’re learning about the community, and you’re learning about health care.

The following section, Special Considerations in Your Field Work, used with permission from the authors is from:

Making a Difference in Rural Communities: A Guide for Trainees in the Health Professions

To order a copy of this publication click here

Dress for acceptance.  While you may feel more like a student or trainee than a full-fledged professional, the reality is that you are representing your profession, your training institution, and your field site, and acordingly, you must dress professionally.  Take your cues from other professionals at your field site.

Be sensitive to literacy.  Your patient or client may not know how to read, or may read only on a very low level.  Think about that before you depend on pamphlets or other written materials to convey important information.  Identifying literacy levels is not easy; people who express themselves very well orally may not read well.  Similarly, grade-level completion is not a reliable indicator.  For related links and more information on this issue click here.

Appreciate that limited education does not equal limited intelligence.  People without formal education may very well be as intelligent and capable of solving problems as you are.  Resist the temptation to press your views or solutions on others.  Your goal is to solve problems with rather than for people.

Understand the importance of money.  You must know something about your patient’s or client’s financial situation.  Even with Medicaid or Medicare coverage, some people have to make extraordinarily difficult choices, such as between medicine and food.  Or, if your patient feels better, he may skip a recheck appointment rather than miss an afternoon’s work - and pay!

Respect the choices of others.  Despite your best efforts, individuals and families may make choices, based on their own value systems, that are contrary to yours or difficult to understand.  A severely disabled person, for example, may refuse nursing home care in order to stay in his own home, even at grave risk to his health and safety.  Such situations can be troubling to you; talking with your preceptor and others involved can be most helpful.

Recognize that most things worth doing take time.  Change, whether on the part of individuals, organizations, or communities, takes time and patience.  In some instances, your work will initiate or contribute to a process of change that will take place slowly over many months or years, culminating well after you have moved on to other responsibilities.

Allow yourself to have feelings.  You may encounter situations that shock and upset you.  Seeing the magnitude of an individual’s problems may leave you wondering how you can truly make a difference.  You may be tempted to turn away or push down the feelings that come when you see a situation that is beyond your ability to mend.  To be able to function as a care giver, you must let yourself feel the sadness and concern and still do what you can as a professional to help your patient.

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