The Minnesota Area Health Education Center programs (AHEC) from 1972-81 improved health care in rural Minnesota areas by providing 2,200 health-professional students and resident physicians with off-campus courses and clinical training. Other programs provided continuing education, patient education, quality assurance, and minority career recruitment. More than 3,000 participated in AHEC programs. A follow-up of 1,500 former participants and a survey of 400 AHEC-involved medical students and residents showed the following project impacts: (1) improved distribution of health professionals (to rural areas); (2) more primary care health professionals; (3) high-quality decentralized health-professional education; and (4) AHEC preceptorships during third and fourth years of medical school being more influential than other AHEC-supported clinical training experiences in choice of specialty and desired practice location. Recommendations include flexible federal AHEC regulations that do not mandate decentralized training in community hospitals; a stable source of federal support for living expenses of students wishing to explore rural health-care practices; emphasis on off-campus AHEC preceptorships during third and fourth year medical school; provisions in future national and state AHEC evaluations for follow-up of former AHEC participants; control group designs; and greater dissemination and use of evaluation results. (Author/KC)