SUNDRE – For the first time in a long while, Sundre hosted a contingent of medical students and their preceptors as part of a program that introduced them to a rural setting.
There were almost 30 participants in town on May 8-9 for the annual two-day orientation through the University of Calgary Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (UCLIC).
A portion of their time was spent at the Sundre United Church, where space in the basement has been allocated for training opportunities to complement the nearby eSIM lab located in the former town office space immediately adjacent to the Sundre Fire Department hall.
One session involved what is known as FAST ultrasound training, an acronym that stands for focused abdominal sonography in trauma, said Dr. Jonathan Somerville, a doctor on the team with Family Greenwood Physicians who also works at the Myron Thompson Health Centre.
“A few years ago during the UCLIC orientation, we started offering a brief introduction to what we call point-of-care ultrasound,” Somerville told the Albertan, adding the procedure can be done in an emergency department or clinic prior to proceeding with more detailed exams.
“It’s a simple exam that can be done in an emergency department by a physician to see if there’s any signs of internal bleeding from an accident or trauma that would mean this patient needs to be urgently transferred for surgery or a CAT scan,” he elaborated.
“It’s used a lot in rural settings to know how urgently we need to act on someone.”
If a patient arrives showing no signs of bleeding following a potentially serious incident, health-care staff must otherwise conduct additional more time-consuming tests or investigations to rule out internal bleeding.
However, the FAST exam can far more quickly ascertain whether a patient is suffering from internal bleeding and in need of a rapid transfer or blood transfusion, he said.
“It really allows us to respond quickly and safely with patients in places where we can’t get CT scans,” he said.
Another part of the training involved a course known as Stop the Bleed, which per its namesake covers the basics of managing blood loss regardless of the setting, he said.
“The course is actually designed for a lay person to recognize how to use things like tourniquets, put pressure on wounds to stop bleeding before help arrives,” he said.
“But we offer the course for the students so that they can, in turn, actually bring this training into their community,” he said.
“Students get certified … then they’re able to host training events for lay people in the community who are interested in what a bystander can do in a trauma situation.”
Additionally, he said the orientation includes a discussion with students on the expectations of the clerkship and also highlights the opportunities to practise as well as the lifestyle options offered by the host community.
“This is where Sundre really shone,” he said, adding the Sundre Health Professional Attraction and Retention Committee (SHPARC) played a big role in planning bridge-building activities such as a version of the Amazing Race that brought students out to different parts of town.
It wasn’t the first time Sundre had hosted the UCLIC program. But the last time was before the late Dr. Hal Irvine passed, he said.
“So it’s been a little while. We were thrilled with the opportunity.”
The program is a clerkship stream for medical students in their final year of training that enables them to choose whether to complete that last year in a rural setting, he said.
“The traditional clerkship, you would do standard rotations where you do six weeks in general surgery, six weeks in psychiatry, six weeks of family medicine, and you just rotate,” he said.
“This program allows you to get all of that experience in a rural setting where you’re working with a rural generalist physician who is helping you learn and grow in a longitudinal way,” he said.
“The idea is that it really prepares you for rural practice.”
The program also boasts “an incredibly good match rate” with students matching to residency programs more than 95 per cent of the time after completing the stream of clerkships, he said.
Three of the students will be doing their clerkship in Sundre but had been assigned before the event. However, it’s hoped the program will have planted some proverbial seeds in terms of incentivizing them to return in the future.
Last year’s orientation was in Brooks, and Somerville said he proposed bringing to Sundre, to which organizers agreed.
“It worked out great because over this last year, I took on the role of co-director of the UCLIC program,” he said, adding it was “really nice to kick it off here at the same time as starting my tenure as co-director.”
Offering parting thoughts, Somerville said the provincial government has shown a commitment to improving rural medical education.
“This program is huge part of that,” he said.
Although the UCLIC has been running for many years, physicians like him look forward to more support for expanding teaching sites.
“To produce a rural doctor, you need to be trained in a rural site,” he said, adding many rural physicians are already overworked and that their involvement in delivering such training opportunities is gratefully appreciated.
Among the students participating was Yingying Zhao, one of the third-year medical students who are preparing to take on their residencies before completing their education and going onto become doctors.
“It’s fantastic, I thought the town of Sundre really came together to provide us both exposure to a rural community and these really valuable hands-on experiences by volunteering,” Zhao said during the FAST ultrasound training.
“This is such a good showcase of how the community can come together,” she said. “You feel so welcome and supported when you’re learning and that’s a huge attraction for learners.”
Zhao hopes to eventually work in Sundre or a place like it.
“I’m thinking about doing a rural family medicine training to just broaden the skills and then go where communities need to be served,” she said.
Her aspiration is to emphasize the importance of primary care and empower patients to better look after their own health to reduce the number of preventable hospital visits and only use those valuable resources when they’re absolutely needed.
As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
