M2 Paulius Mui, a scholar in the fmSTAT track program, wants to know what happens when rural communities lose a physician. To dig deeper into this question, he is conducting a microresearch project through a grant from RuralPREP – Collaborative for Rural Primary care Research, Education, and Practice. As part of the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health regional meeting this summer, Rural PREP’s Design and Dissemination Studio (DDS) connected community stakeholders with medical students like Paulius, in an effort to offer guidance on research projects and create opportunities for collaborating on shared interests in rural health and family medicine. Dr. Davis Patterson, Rural PREP project director, noted, “Paulius is a very motivated, passionate student who wants to make a difference. He wants to do that not only in providing good care for his patients, but also by helping address some of the problems that rural communities face in providing care to patients. This opportunity through microresearch allowed him to deepen the understanding of what he can do as a leader in his community and in a larger sense as well.” For more information about the work Paulius and other students are doing with Rural PREP, please click the read more link below.