UofA Rural Medicine
EDMONTON AB- This year the Rural Medicine Club will be doing two trips into a
rural setting. In the fall we took a busload to a rural community south of
Edmonton. While there we were spoken to by various people in the community
(mayor, medical director, practicing physicians, etc.), had an opportunity to
interact with them and were given a tour of the hospital. The community also had
presentations from the EMS and fire department, of which the highlight was an
MVA simulation. To end the day we had a meal with several rural doctors.
Upcoming, we have a similar trip planned to Jasper and Hinton which will include
a day of skiing.
On weekends throughout the year there are shadowing sites available for
students to spend a
weekend with a rural doctor usually covering emergency. These opportunities are
new this year
and they allow students to experience a small flavor of life in a rural setting
without the
commitment of a full elective.
Also new this year is a rural clinical skills day. At this event, several rural docs give freely of their time to share some basic skills required in a clinical setting. These skills include suturing, initial assessment, dressings, using an ophthalmoscope and more. Still to come this year is an advanced skills day which introduces intubation, small skin biopsies and starting IVs.
In terms of speakers this year, we have heard from both the Alberta North
residency program
and the NWO residency program. We are also anticipating talks from both a rural
specialist and a rural family physician to address the topic of rural lifestyle.
In the future we hope to develop a rural mentorship program which would connect
interested rural physicians with students and create opportunities for the
student to ask questions and begin a rural network. We are also hopeful of
getting rural doctors to give curriculum related lectures. The purpose of this
would be to give a practical perspective on how various conditions are handled
in a rural setting with limited resources.
-Kevin Laskowski
from www.srpc.ca