Meet a Clinician

Who:

Greg Hinson, MD
Nantucket, MA

Training:

Medical College of Virginia
Middlesex Hospital Family Practice Residency Program
Middletown, CT

What does it mean to be practicing in a rural setting?

"Compared to the metropolitan parts of New England, practicing Family Medicine in a rural setting allows me to use my training to its fullest.

I practice obstetrics, take care of patients in the office, the ER, and ICU, and on the floors."

Why rural health?

"I didn't choose a career in rural health per se. I chose to be a Family Physician because I liked being able to (even needing to) sit down and talk to patients and look at them as a whole person and take care of their family as well. I also chose to live in small towns because this is the lifestyle that best fits me and my family. You put those two choices together and it is easy to fall into a career in rural health.

Consider practicing in a rural location if you have a passion for primary care medicine. Too often, in the large academic settings, the family physician ends up simply sending patients from one specialist to another--it's the standard of care. Where I practice, someone has to take a one-hour boat ride if he/she wants to see a dermatologist; obviously, this means I get to do a lot of skin biopsies. In a rural setting like this, the variety of things you diagnose and treat is part of what makes the career choice enjoyable."

You can visit Greg Hinson's website at http://www.ackdoc.com/

Click here for one resident's experience with Dr. Hinson

Who:

Pamela Grimaldi, D.O.
Assistant Professor UMMS
Barre Health Center

Training:

University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, D.O.
Family Medicine Residency: Wilson Regional Medical Center

Why rural health?

"As a Family Physician, I searched for and enjoy rural practice opportunities because I have more autonomy, can do full spectrum "real family medicine" including peds, ob/gyn and inpatient and many office procedures that I would be unable to do in a more specialty driven environment of a city. Being in a rural area allows me to truly know my patients not only through my office visits but by my interactions in the community in which I also live. A rural community also allows me as a leader of the health care in that community to do teaching, sit on health boards and actually participate in changes in the health care of the area in which I live."

Who:

Stacy Potts, MD
Associate Professor, UMMS
Family Medicine Residency Director
Barre Health Center

Training:

University of Vermont, M.D.
Family Medicine Residency: UMMS, Barre Family Health Center

Why rural health?

"As a medical student I had the opportunity to experience rural medicine in a couple of different small towns in Vermont. What struck me most from my experiences was the relationship that my preceptors had with their patients. The discussions were not just about medical issues but about town politics and the kids' soccer games. Home visits were commonplace and the community thought of the preceptors as the town's doctor. I looked forward to knowing my patients and being known this way.

Family medicine was clearly the only specialty for me. The breadth of what I am privileged to do is surpassed only by the depth of the relationships I am blessed to have with my patients.

I truly believe that family medicine provides an essential medical home for families. Through longitudinal, comprehensive care of families through pregnancy to death and everything in between, a rural family doctor becomes in fact a vital part of the family.

As I find myself sharing town politics and discussing recent soccer games, I know that I have found the career that will always satisfy as well as challenge and excite me."

Who:

Stefan Topolski, MD
Assistant Professor, UMMS
Fitchburg, MA
Country Doctor
Shelburne Falls, MA
Founder and Director, Caring in Community, Inc. 501(c)3

Training:

Brandeis U., B.S.
University of Maryland, M.D.
West Penn Allegheny Health System Family Practice Residency, Pittsburgh, PA

Why rural health?

There is an appropriate scale to human relationship. As children we live and grow in small communities and intimate families. In the full flower of adulthood we learn how few relationships we can maintain without the threads of our connections thinning and the texture of our life losing its color.

Rural health care is for me the most human scale with the most extended family and the least alienation of strangers for neighbors and friends. Nature is close at hand. One can feel the land. Recreation abounds. Traffic is few. Quiet is bliss. The more distant we stand from organized medicine and government power the more freedom we find to explore all of medicine and practice it as best it may be understood.

Our rich physician history of healing, our human values, our traditions of the house call, barter, and compassionate free care survive in rural niches far from the rushing mainstream of for-profit doctoring and the 5 minute visit with tests and referrals for all. One can be too rural, isolated and alone for healthy living, but I believe it far easier and far too common to be isolated, alone, unhealthy and sad in the midst of the crushing tumult of city and suburb.

So while I have lived in country, suburb and city, on boat and on land, I have found rural life to be the simpler, less regulated, less expensive, more free and more sustainable life. Rural life celebrates a smaller scale of human interaction where the spontaneous and the unexpected are the norm. Among friends and family in a small town where everyone knows everyone, our synchronicities produce a synergy of community that gives me great hope for our future.

Website: http://www.cottagemed.org