Overview

Background

Michigan Health Student/Resident Experiences and Rotations in Community Health (M-SEARCH) is a state-run program, developed by the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) in partnership with the Michigan Center for Rural Health (MCRH), the Michigan Primary Care Association (MPCA), and the Michigan Health Council (MHC). The program is designed to encourage residents, medical students, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners to spend two to sixteen weeks performing a clinical rotation with a health provider in a rural or urban underserved area that qualifies under the Federal Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) guidelines.


M-SEARCH is designed to address the health service needs of underserved populations by establishing and strengthening community-academic linkages and by facilitating the recruitment and retention of health professionals in underserved areas.


The program was originally developed in 2010, and is funded by a grant from the US Department of Health & Human Services – Health Resources and Services Administration.

Vision

Primary health care needs throughout Michigan will be fully met by a multi-disciplinary primary health care workforce sustained by a pipeline of primary health care professionals educated in an environment with:
 

• Strong linkages between communities and health professional training programs,
• Collaboration among health professional training programs (within and across disciplines), and
• Opportunities for all students to experience primary care service delivery in an underserved community as part of a culturally competent, multidisciplinary health care team

Mission

The M-SEARCH Program will
 

• Enable students and residents to experience clinical rotations on multidisciplinary health care teams in underserved communities across the state
• Contribute to improved provider recruitment and retention for health care facilities in underserved areas
• Establish a web-based student clinical rotation matching system that provides high quality, multi-disciplinary training experiences in underserved areas