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Education
Schulich medical students discover rural/regional medicine
London - Starting today, 147 first year medical students from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario will fan out across southwestern Ontario to experience first-hand all that rural/regional medicine has to offer. Discovery Week 2009 will run from Monday,June 1 to Friday, June 5 in 33 communities.
The goal behind Discovery Week is to inspire medical students to practice in rural, small and mid-sized communities in Southwestern Ontario upon completion of their medical training, and to provide students with an understanding of rural/regional medicine. It grew out of a sense of responsibility to the community to address the doctor shortage. But the program, coordinated through the Southwestern Ontario Medical Education Network (SWOMEN) has evolved to become one of our most positive community outreach experiences, both for the people who live and work in these communities and for our students. This was recognized with an award this year from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education for best community outreach program.
The students will spend four days in doctor’s offices, health clinics and hospitals working alongside physicians as they care for patients. The communities that welcome our students year after year have come to view this week as a valuable recruitment opportunity, and pull out all the stops to show the best of what life in a smaller community is about, whether it’s visiting farms for home-cooked meals or seeing amateur theatre productions. On Friday, the students get together to discuss the experience.
“We are pleased that 45 per cent of this year’s medical graduates are going into family medicine,” says Dean Carol Herbert. “That’s the highest number in years and we believe the kind of exposure offered through Discovery Week is helping to build that interest.”
A student who spent Discovery Week in Clinton last year wrote “I realized that the role of the rural doctor was multifold and by necessity, they dutifully served their community and patients in capacities which I had never thought possible as a family physician. Whether it was obstetrics or gynecology, simple operating room procedures, ongoing management of chronic illnesses or acute management in the emergency room, the rural doctor was at the forefront of it all! It is this diversity and versatility which again draws my interest and desire to gain more insight to a career in rural medicine.”
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