The Ambulatory Community Selective offers a unique learning opportunity to UTMB students.  This is your opportunity to see “medicine in the trenches.”  Students are strongly urged to seek clinical opportunities in their field of choice, but in ways which are unusual for them.  In particular this may be the only opportunity students have to experience medicine in medium-sized communities or in rural areas, and students are strongly urged to identify sites in smaller communities for this rotation.

One mission of the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) scattered around Texas is to provide support for individuals in health career training to experience their profession in rural and medically underserved areas.  AHEC personnel have identified physicians in a wide range of disciplines who are eager to serve as preceptors to UTMB medical students.  In many cases housing is available free of charge for these rotations. 

If you would like to be a part of the community experience for this rotation, the Community Based Education site (http://www.utmb.edu/ahec/cbe/)identifies rural and medium-sized communities which have housing available.  AHEC representatives will make every effort to identify preceptors for you in these communities in the discipline of your choice to enhance your educational experience.  Many students are surprised to learn how meaningful it is to become a part of a close-knit community even for this brief period of time, and are pleased to discover the high quality of medicine and wide range of pathology to be found outside large metropolitan areas.