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Context:Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LIC) are widely used as an educational method, particularly in rural areas. They are good for facilitating hands-on learning and deep relationships between student, patients, and supervisors. Objectives:This study sought to examine and compare learning experience of third-year rural medical students studying specialties (women’s health, aged care, child and adolescent heath, mental health, general practice) by either a traditional hospital-based rotation or a LIC in a rural general practice setting. Methods:Data was collected from two groups of rural students (LIC; traditional hospital-based) over two academic years, utilizing focus groups to investigate general experiences of living and learning rurally, within the different educational models. Results:Results reaffirmed that there was no perceived academic disadvantage to studying medicine rurally. Studying medicine in a rural area provides increased access to patients, more hands-on experience, and close relationships with patients and colleagues. LIC students reported increased confidence in clinical skills, felt better prepared for internship, however experienced more social isolation than students in hospital-based rotations. Conclusions:Students undergoing a rural LIC feel more confident in their clinical skills and preparedness for practice than other rural students. This study supports the use of LICs as a powerful educational tool. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prussia and France have been associated with the absolutist expansion of monarchical authority and the evolution of a heavily centralised and interventionist state structure. Drawing on revisionist work in the two historiographies, this article explores the meanings of 'region' in both cases, with some surprising results. French regionalism has often been seen as fundamentally antagonistic to the pretensions of the centralising state. Yet the authors suggest that French regionalists increasingly moulded their reflections on culture and the state in a modern, republican context. The state responded in subtle ways: the relationship was thus marked by a higher degree of reciprocity than has often been acknowledged. The structure of the Prussian kingdom was, initially for historical and later for ideological reasons, less centralised than the traditional view would allow. This relatively fragmented and decentralised system created the space for a complex and highly adaptable relationship between the region, the province, the state and the nation. The picture that emerges forces us to rethink some key assumptions about the political cultures of France and Prussia, but also highlights some commonalities in the European experience of regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]