Introduction: There are shortages of allied health professionals in rural and remote areas and people living in rural and remote areas have limited access to the allied health services, putting them at a greater risk of poor health outcomes. Clinical placement programs expose students to an authentic work experience.
Objective: The aim of this project was to create and evaluate a placement model for occupational therapy to build relevant skills and knowledge to practice within a rural primary health care setting, which involved the development of a placement curriculum for the student led services focusing on rural and primary health care context and co-locating within a rural primary health centre to provide occupational therapy assessments and interventions.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey design with convenience sampling was used. Data was collected anonymously via REDCap assessing participating students’ experience of the curriculum and overall placement experience using a semi-structured survey. The qualitative responses from the students’ survey were analysed using Nvivo.
Results: Two occupational therapy students were placed in a rural General Practice (GP) clinic between February 2024 to June 2024. The placement curriculum and experience provided the students the opportunity to consider the role of occupational therapists within a rural primary health care centre and participating in an interdisciplinary model of practice.
Conclusion: The student placement within a rural GP clinic may offer a broadening of the occupational therapy students’ knowledge and awareness about rural primary health care and may benefit the rural communities through increased access to occupational therapy services.