The Professional Nurse Traineeship (PNT) program was created to provide nursing schools that place high proportions of their graduates in medically underserved communities with additional funding to support students in graduate nursing education or training. A total of 4,332 nurses who graduated in the academic years of 1996-1997 or 1997-1998 from schools receiving PNT funds were surveyed regarding their graduate training experiences, employment after graduation, and education before entering graduate school. Univariate and bivariate analyses of the 3,219 responses (response rate, 74.5%) established that, although the PNT program is meeting its performance goal of placing 40% of its graduate recipients in medically underserved communities, schools with funding preference actually had lower rates of graduates employed in medically underserved communities than did schools without the preference. Some school practices found in schools with and without funding preferences (such as requiring nurses to take courses on providing health care services in rural or medically underserved communities and requiring nurses to sign a commitment to practice in medically underserved communities) and some demographic factors (such as non-White race and Hispanic ethnicity) were associated with higher rates of employment in medically underserved communities. The survey and weighting methodology as well as the selected results by year of graduation are appended. (Contains 23 tables and 5 references.) (MN)