Serving the underserved: a win-win situation

Medical school was a difficult adjustment for me. Coming from a blue-collar background and lacking a medical pedigree, I did not relate to most of my classmates, and I made very few friends. That changed when I met J., a second-generation physician-to-be without the competitive guile or sense of entitlement implicit in most of the medical students I had met. With a generous personality undoubtedly sculpted by the experience of motherhood, she came across to me as someone who generally cared for others. I could tell that she opted for this career with pure intentions in mind. She modeled what I had thought this calling was about, and she reaffirmed my decision to become a physician. I don’t know if I would have made it beyond the early stages of medical school had fate not placed us in the same training group. Frustrated with the mission of my school’s specialty-centric approach to treating disease, I opted to complete my clinical clerkships at the other major city in the state where I became part of the first class of a new community-based medical curriculum. This was a unique curriculum in which supervised medical students managed a cohort of uninsured patients with chronic disease using cost-effective medications and largely donated diagnostic services. Emphasis was placed on public health, social factors contributing to disease, and lifestyle associations with diabetes and hypertension. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage y...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary Care Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs