Abstract
Purpose: Rural areas face significant shortage of dermatologists. Rural origin is a strong indicator of eventual rural practice for physicians, however students of rural background account for less than 5% of all incoming medical students. Increasing representation of students with rural backgrounds is important to increase the supply of dermatologists in rural areas, which have higher skin cancer mortality rates compared to urban populations. We created a virtual educational outreach program for high school students in Maine, a predominately rural state, to create interest amongst high school students in pursuing a career in health care.
 Methods: We developed a virtual pipeline program called the Inside Medicine Program that provides monthly educational workshops to high school students in Maine. For one of the sessions, we conducted a dermatology workshop teaching various topics in Dermatology. Pre- and post-curriculum surveys were sent to 33 students, which used a 10-point Likert scale to rate interest and perceived knowledge levels in these topics.
 Results: After the workshop, 100% of respondents endorsed a greater understanding of the path to a dermatology career and 94.12% stated that they were interested in learning more about dermatology. Moreover, students endorsed greater interest in pursuing a career in dermatology and reported a significant increase in knowledge about various dermatologic topics.
 Conclusions: Our results suggest that our program has improved these students’ interest and perceived knowledge in dermatology. We hope that this will promote their subsequent entry into the medical field to address shortages in subspecialty care in rural areas.
Highlights
The disparity in the geographic distribution of dermatologists between urban and rural areas continues to worsen, with many counties lacking a dermatologist1
Increasing representation of both underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups in medicine (URM) and non-URM students with rural backgrounds is important to increase the supply of dermatologists in rural areas, which have higher skin cancer mortality rates compared to urban populations4
Adapting to the precautions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed a virtual pipeline program called the Inside Medicine Program, led by a combination of medical school students, faculty and staff
Summary
The disparity in the geographic distribution of dermatologists between urban and rural areas continues to worsen, with many counties lacking a dermatologist. Those with a rural background who are from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups in medicine (URM) make up less than 0.5% of new medical students3 Increasing representation of both URM and non-URM students with rural backgrounds is important to increase the supply of dermatologists in rural areas, which have higher skin cancer mortality rates compared to urban populations. Increasing representation of students with rural backgrounds is important to increase the supply of dermatologists in rural areas, which have higher skin cancer mortality rates compared to urban populations. Conclusions: Our results suggest that our program has improved these students’ interest and perceived knowledge in dermatology We hope that this will promote their subsequent entry into the medical field to address shortages in subspecialty care in rural areas
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