勛圖惇蹋 medical students introduced to rural patient care through Vermont immersion
First-year 勛圖惇蹋 College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) students Wilson Mei and Sean Lombard recently completed a one-month pilot immersion program at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital and Northern Counties Health Care in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
The immersion program, the first in Vermonts Northeast Kingdom for 勛圖惇蹋 COM, is intended to introduce and highlight patient-centered care early on in a medical students education.
Its a great way to start early training and for them to understand what options lie ahead for the future, said Victoria S. Thieme, D.O., director of Clinical Experience in COM.
The program helps connect a students newfound interests in rural health care needs through job shadowing.
I had immediately ruled out psychiatry and family medicine, explained Mei. But having shadowed in family medicine and psychiatry, I realized I was entirely wrong about my perception of these fields. Being exposed to all these different departments, I experienced a wide range of what it means to be a rural physician.
The experience not only introduces students to different specialties and methods of practicing medicine, it highlights the
importance and value of practicing in rural and underserved communities.
You see people who are really good at what they do, said Lombard. And you want to be like them.
The immersion also included a research component. Lombard worked with Thieme to design a project that studies how individuals with substance use disorders are tracked.
Vermonts system of Medication Assisted Treatment uses the hub and spoke model, which supports people in recovery from opioid use disorder. Hubs are locations that offer daily support and spokes are supports set up within general health care services. Lombard and Mei compared outcomes with the results gathered by a student who participated in an immersion program in Maine, which does not have a hub and spoke model.