Pub. 4 2020 Issue 2

of patient-provider relationships, as well as the potential for community outreach. As a provider for not only a patient but also their parents, children and neighbors, family physicians can integrate into their patients’ lives in a way that is, I believe, unique to family medicine. This integration allows for a more holistic understanding of the patient, their life and their needs. I also think there’s something to be said for slowly piecing together a patient’s narrative over time — although the day-to-day interactions of primary care may seem unassuming, their cu- mulation has incredible depth. It’s the strength of these relationships that gives family physicians the power to impact their patients’ lives. As experts in preventive health, I also have found family medicine physicians to be per- fectly poised to serve their community in the form of public health fairs and mobile care. This kind of service is an area that I’ve been increasingly enthu- siastic about and hope to pursue in the future! I have heard from some other students that sometimes doc- tors from other spe- cialties will look down on family medicine — has that been your experience? What do you think the general public needs to under- stand about the im- portance of more doc- tors going into family medicine? What is it that makes you most proud of going into this specialty? The experience that I’ve encountered a few times is a nonfamily medicine attending who sincerely commends me for going into family medicine but implies that 1. It is a difficult and unre - warding field, and 2. They would never do it. My response is to remind both Student Spotlight | Continued from page 15 myself and others that all specialties of medicine have unique challenges and that each of us has different criteria for what we find rewarding. I’m not sure if I identify with a sense of pride with respect to going into family medicine — I just love it, and I know it’s the right place for me! Dissolving negative attitudes about family medi- cine is critical because we desperately need more preventive care provid- ers. While I’m no health care expert, I believe that using family medicine physicians to optimize preventive health can generate higher quality, lower-cost health care. What are the best aspects of medical school? The most challenging? Medical school is a transforma- tive experience like none other. You truly see and feel yourself growing from a student into a provider, and it’s incredible to bear witness to that change not only in yourself but in your peers. As a medical student, you can also explore all the different fields of medicine, which inherently exposes you to a massive range of human life and experiences. It has been one of the most profound privileges of my life to understand existence from this perspective. The hardest thing about medical school is the “grind” — it’s a lot of work for a long time, and you have to be persistent. It does get tiring, and sometimes it feels unfair to work so hard as an expectation, without praise. However, it does prompt you to find a cohort of peers to endure with and to support one another. How has medical school changed due to safety restrictions from COVID-19? How has your practical experience changed because of COVID-19? At the start of the COVID pandemic, my entire class was pulled from the clinical environment. For a couple of weeks, the school of medicine tried some online learning. The school ulti- mately decided to pause the curricu- lum until we could safely resume in- person work (about nine weeks later). After that, we returned to our clinical sites with new PPE requirements and restrictions on seeing COVID patients. While the disruption in rotations has resulted in significant schedule reor - ganization with overall decreased total clinical time, my day-to-day experi- ence in the hospital after I returned has actually been quite stable. Where do you hope to complete your residency? Where and what kind of practice do you hope to go into? Why? This question is a tough one for me! I sometimes dream about working inpatient and ED services in a rural town, but I can also see myself thriv- ing in an urban or underserved clinical environment. In either case, my cur- rent goal is to match into a program As a provider for not only a patient but also their parents, children and neighbors, family physicians can integrate into their patients’ lives in a way that is, I believe, unique to family medicine. www.UtahAFP.org | 16