How does rural work-integrated learning prepare the future health workforce for practice?

Abstract: Work-integrated learning (WIL) is essential for preparing health students to work in complex health environments. Facilitating WIL in rural areas can also contribute to improving the health of those communities, to students’ understanding of the complex relationship between socio-geographic location and health, and to developing the future health workforce in these communities. This presentation will outline research conducted by the Department of Rural Health that exemplifies the design and coordination components of rural WIL that optimise student learning and capability development. In particular, the contribution of service-learning and micro-placements will be examined. The research demonstrates how these WIL models contribute to career readiness by promoting learner agency and changing the power dynamics present in traditional apprenticeship-style WIL models.