Day in the Life: Rural Family Medicine

This area was definitely not as small as Lewisburg (almost 10x the size, actually), but pretty much everything was about 1.5 hours away, so it was close enough, and still registered as a 4 on the RUCA (Rural Urban Commuting Area) code scale!

I actually found out about this place because of the Emergency Medicine conference I went to a couple years ago, and since I’m a fan of working with under-served populations, I managed to set up a rotation here!

Day in the Life: Rural Family Medicine

A Typical Day

For some reason, I was under the impression that I would be doing an inpatient rotation here, but…imagine my pleasant surprise when I discovered I’d actually be working in the resident clinic! (Outpatient is my favorite. <3)

My hours were typically from 8 to 5, unless patients no-showed on us or if there was a really light day. On Thursdays, there were EM didactics in the morning and FM didactics in the afternoon. We were given the option of attending EM didactics or going to clinic, and both opted to be at clinic.

There was one other FM student working at the clinic with me, so we each worked with a different resident each day. They were all super nice and happy to teach, answer questions, and tell us about the program and/or the area.

I got to put what I learned on my nutrition rotation to use on numerous occasions (told you it’d be helpful!). I did a lot of counseling on diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol management, Medicare wellness exams, lots of musculoskeletal complaints, OMT, and also assisted with cyst excisions and ear lavages.

A lot of the patients I worked with went out of their way to tell the resident I was working with that I was super nice/a real sweetheart/keeper, and would be a great doctor! <3

I was eating dinner in the cafeteria one evening and it happened to be the hospital’s open house! I noticed a flu shot booth off to the side and decided to ask if I could help out with it!

Stopped in to #volunteer at the #flushot booth at the #hospital this evening! #medstudent #medschool #medschoollife

A photo posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Dec 9, 2015 at 6:12pm PST

They were happy to let me help, so I gave shots to a bunch of kids and adults. (Only two of the kids cried, and one forgot about it almost instantaneously! I consider this a great accomplishment in life!)

I also got a free gym membership to their wellness center while I was there! Lots of cardio equipment, some weights, racquetball courts, a pool, basketball court, and group exercise classes! :]

Meals

Although I did have a kitchen, I found mouse poop in the utensil drawer and a note about roaches on the wall (my housemates found a dead one of each), so I wasn’t too excited about cooking. It worked out well, because I was given $115 to spend for the two weeks that I was here. The hospital cafeteria food was pretty good, so I decided to save money by not buying groceries.

Parking

Free, and lots of spots everywhere! I lived close enough (0.5 miles) that I could walk to the hospital or the clinic, and there was a supermarket across the street, but I never visited that since my meals were covered.

Housing

$50 for 2 weeks is definitely not shabby! I had 3 housemates here, all of whom were there for EM audition rotations. They were all super nice, but I didn’t get to know them as well since we had entirely different schedules and their rotations last 4 weeks instead of 2. It was cool how they got to be such good friends though! One of them got a tree and they all got presents for each other to pile under it! :]

We mused at some point about whether our neighbors knew this was housing for medical students, or if they thought it was a meth house due to all the random people who constantly came in and out to stay (hah).