she went through the Match in 2018. She applied to every family medicine program in Utah but did not match. She followed up with all four programs to ask what she could do differently or better, but three of the programs told her not to bother because she had been out of school too long for them to consider her application. “I knew what my application looked like to other people,” she said. “It looks like I had a 10-year hole.” St. Mark’s, a small, communitybased program that takes just four residents per year, encouraged her to try again. Dance made the most of her opportunity, serving on the program’s GME committee and as a chief resident, as well as the resident member of the Utah HealthCare Institute Board of Trustees. Her duties as chief include scheduling the residents and serving as the official liaison between residents and faculty. “I want to make sure that our residents who are breastfeeding have a schedule that is going to accommodate that because no one gave that to me when I was breastfeeding a baby during my first residency,” she said. “Medicine isn’t helpful for women and mothers in a lot of ways. If there’s a way that I can help with that based on my life experience, I want to be a part of that.” Dance said she has learned a lot from younger residents but hopes they can also benefit from her experience. “That’s what’s so beautiful about medicine, is that it’s a community of learning,” she said. “Family medicine, in particular, doesn’t have to be a hierarchy of learning. It can be, look at who has different experiences and different skills, and learn from a person who knows a lot about a certain topic. Be humble enough to learn from people who might not be as advanced as you are in your career but still have so much to offer.” Dance completed her Master’s in Public Health in June and will graduate from residency next summer. “They have been so complementary,” she said. “Family medicine and public health have to go hand in hand, and it has been so beneficial to me to be able to get the formal training in public health because I’ve used it every single day as part of being a family medicine physician.” Dance researched and created a tool implemented this summer to screen patients for challenges related to social determinants of health. For her efforts and perseverance, Dance was one of 12 winners of the AAFP’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education. She offered this advice for people who don’t match their first time through the process: “Keep trying. It was difficult to step away, but it’s been worth it to come back.” Motherhood makes you more patient, and I was in a better position to talk to people about their health and how their family affects their health. Those things have become so real for me that I wanted to include that as part of what I did in the future, and that made primary care a really obvious choice. It has been the best fit for me.” This Article was originally published by AAFP in Oct. 2021 29 |
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQxMjUw