Center for Rural Health Professions and RMED Website address: http://rhp.rockford.uic.edu/rhp Center for Rural Health Professions (CRHP)Mission: The Center for Rural Health Professions functions as an interdisciplinary, collaborative initiative to improve health and healthcare delivery, and related economic outcomes, of rural communities through education, evaluation and research.

CRHP Goals:
· Meet the health care needs of rural residents through collaborative projects involving multiple health professions.
· Create and implement recruitment, retention and health care delivery initiatives that will positively impact the health and well-being of both rural residents and their communities.

CRHP Partners: Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Public Health and Social Work

Interdisciplinary Curriculum: The Center for Rural Health Professions develops interdisciplinary curricular opportunities on site in rural communities. These curricula focus on team development and interdisciplinary partnerships in health care delivery and integrate a population-based approach.

Rural Medical Education (RMED) Program Mission: The Rural Medical Education (RMED) Program of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford seeks to admit and prepare medical students from the State of Illinois who will, upon completion of residency training, locate and stay in rural Illinois as primary care physicians.
The RMED Program is the medical component of the Center for Rural Health Professions.

RMED Curriculum: The RMED program is designed to supplement the regular curriculum of the College of Medicine at Rockford. Following matriculation, students are exposed to rural issues throughout the four years of medical school. In the first three years of matriculation, students participate in seminars, field trips and computer-based assignments which focus on rural health care, family medicine and community oriented primary care issues and techniques. During their fourth year, students participate in a 16-week preceptorship experience that takes place in one of 23 rural collaborating hospitals across the state. This experience is completed under the supervision of a faculty preceptor and replaces the fourth year elective rotations. RMED students are required to conduct a community-oriented primary care (COPC) project during their preceptorships; this project is intended to address a health need in the precepting community.