Evolution of a Family Nurse Practitioner Program to improve primary care distribution.

The Family Nurse Practitioner Program of the Univeristy of California, Davis, has effectively improved the distribution of primary health care manpower in medically underserved areas. This has been accomplished by selecting students, preceptors, and faculty from areas of need; decentralizing the clinical and didactic training sites; developing a competency-based, portable curriculum; and coordinating it all with a circuit-riding, institutionally based faculty.