El Paso medical school gets grant to increase exposure to family medicine, border health

Texas’ newest medical school has been awarded a grant that they’ll use to increase medical student exposure to primary care and to encourage these students to pursue practice in underserved areas.

The Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Texas Tech Paul L. Foster School of Medicine in El Paso will receive $945,000 over the next five years from the Health Resources and Services Administration for their project, “Expanding Family Medicine Training for Medical Students on the U.S./Mexico Border.”

“This award will substantially enrich and expand the family medicine-based training experiences for medical students and improve the departmental infrastructure to support delivery of the family medicine clerkship for an increasing medical student class size,” says Department Chairman Gurjeet Shokar, M.D., project director and TAFP member. Associate project director is Department Director of Medical Student Education Charmaine Martin, M.D.

The project has four main objectives: First, it will enhance the family medicine clerkship with interactive web cases focused on border health and it will expand the number of longitudinal electives offered during the clerkship. Second, it will support the development of a service learning track in years one through three of the medical school curriculum. Third, it will be used to develop fourth-year electives focused on border health. And fourth, it will support the recruitment and training of community family medicine faculty to assist with the family medicine clerkship, as well as support ongoing faculty development activities.