Trek to Wheat City eye-opener for med students

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/01/2017 (3417 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By showcasing the ins and outs of rural medicine in Brandon and Virden on Saturday, local health-care professionals hope to draw first- and second-year medical students to Westman.

Many of the 48 University of Manitoba medical students visiting Westman had never even been to Brandon, Prairie Mountain Health director of medical services administration Michelle McKay noted.

“They still are very surprised by what’s available in Brandon,” she shared midway through the students’ annual Rural Interest Group trip to Westman on Saturday. “They’re pleasantly surprised by the amount of services and facilities and size and scope of Brandon because a lot of them have never been here.”

At the intubation clinical station at the Brandon Regional Health Centre, first-year medical student Helen Teklemariam joined a handful of peers in learning how to place a tube down a patient’s throat in order to help them breath when they’re unable to do so on their own.

Under the direction of senior respiratory therapist Dr. Susan Dobson, she slid a tube down a practice dummy’s throat and initiated the breathing apparatus — a career first.

Reflecting on her first attempt as a decent starting point, she said that the day’s clinical stations had been an eye-opener.

Where medical professionals in larger centres such as Winnipeg typically specialize in one narrow area, those in more rural areas — even Brandon to some degree — require a broader range of skills.

“I feel like you’re more well-rounded if you do rural than specialized in a city,” she said, adding that she’s still weighing the pros and cons of rural and urban health-care services.

At the casting clinical station, orthopedic technologist Cynthia Brown noted that applying and removing casts is not something most urban doctors typically take part in and that it’s a more common expectation in rural communities.

“This is something beyond what’s done in med school, so this is an opportunity for them to get some tips and tools on splints and casting that they might use in their future practices,” she explained.

A similar sentiment applies to all six clinical stations, where students learned practical hands-on skills from a broad range of specialities.

These lessons carried forward during a field trip to Virden, where students learned what medical professionals in even smaller centres deal with on a daily basis.

With participating students in their first or second year of in-classroom study, this was many of their first exposure to a hands-on health-care environment.

McKay said that Saturday’s educational sessions were only the first step toward recruitment. She plans on following students through their lengthy educational processes, catching up with them on occasion.

Saturday’s Rural Interest Group event was hosted by Manitoba’s Office of Rural and Northern Health, in partnership with Prairie Mountain Health.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB