Emma Jacobs MED ’28 and Gabriela Sanders MED ‘28—student co-leaders of the Rural Health Scholars—share what has changed and what lies ahead.
Jacobs explains the transition from a student-driven scholars’ group to a formal pathway is a four-year, three phase commitment that includes an exploratory preclinical curriculum, a rural clerkship where medical students gain hands-on experience with a rural practitioner, and in the fourth year, a final project that brings together the preclinical and clinical experiences.
Speaking during the New England Rural Health Association 2025 Rural Health Student Summit in early September, she and Sanders each talked about the reasons they are interested in rural health and the opportunities available in the pathway.
Jacobs attended college in Maine and studied Spanish with no intention of going to medical school. When she got involved with the organization Maine Mobile Health Program that provides healthcare to migrant farm workers, she became familiar with the complex needs and host of other factors, both positive and negative, affecting their healthcare. A different experience from her life near New York City.
“I also fell in love with living in a rural area and what small communities brought to my own life,” she says. “Having that experience, I knew that I wanted to live in a rural environment an learn more about what rural communities need in terms of healthcare and what role I could play.”
In contrast to Jacobs, Sanders grew up in a “little bit of a rural location” but like Jacobs had no interest in practicing medicine or living in a rural area. Attending college in Vermont changed that.
“I studied economics and became interested in learning more about the community around me,” she says. “I worked on a variety of initiatives around rural economic development, including food insecurity and farm worker advocacy groups.
“When I decided on medicine, I knew I wanted to continue focusing on finding ways to address some of these unique challenges that are often not very community-centered in their solutions.”
Jacobs and Sanders are focused on introducing future physicians to what rural health and the delivery of healthcare can look like and by giving medical students a sense of what it means to engage with this community beyond academics through volunteer work, shadowing opportunities, and a variety of community service events.
One new ongoing opportunity is the bi-monthly LISTEN Kitchen, where rural health pathway students cook dinner for families at the LISTEN Kitchen in White River Junction in Vermont.
Photo Gallery:
In mid-September, at the Tunbridge World’s fair in Tunbridge, Vermont, the Rural Health students set up a health services booth focused on blood pressure and cardiovascular health education as well providing free blood pressure checks. First- and second-year medical students manned the booth alongside physician preceptors.
Upcoming events include rural health panel discussions, a trip with the Area Health Education Consortium to Northern New Hampshire that includes shadowing opportunities with rural physicians, the ongoing LISTEN Kitchen dinners, and a skills night.
“I think part of our responsibility of being at a school like Geisel is to understand more about what it is like to be a rural patient and about the community, but to also look beyond that to the challenges and tools that lead to creative, community driven solutions.”
