Hello,
I'm a grad student planning a possible medical career, and I am pretty sure I would find being a FP in a rural/small town area to be very rewarding. (I come from a rural background)
I'm really excited about the challenge of becoming a first-rate diagnostician in every area, being able to intelligently advocate for my patients with any specialist, and developing the competence to take care of most things myself.
The one thing I'm concerned about is surgical/ob issues. I'm fascinated by surgery, have a lot of nerve, and become very cool and focused in critical situations. I also have pretty unusual manual dexterity, and I'm sure I could do any procedure well as long as I had adequate training.
The issue is training--I would never bill myself as a surgeon or an ob, but if I'm the only doc on call in a rural hospital, I will (probably regularly) be forced into situations where there was no time to transfer and I would have the choice of operating or watching the patient die. Women (possibly without any previous prenatal care) will go into labor and come to the ER and I'll have to deal with it.
How do rural FP's get advanced procedual training? I wish there were FP fellowships available in operative gyn, emergency vascular surgery, appendectomies, etc. Is it possible to design your own "advanced FP" PGY-4?
Are there any FP residencies that are known for being very "high-level" in emphasizing advanced procedures and specialist-level diagnostic ability, possibly with a 4th year available?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I'm a grad student planning a possible medical career, and I am pretty sure I would find being a FP in a rural/small town area to be very rewarding. (I come from a rural background)
I'm really excited about the challenge of becoming a first-rate diagnostician in every area, being able to intelligently advocate for my patients with any specialist, and developing the competence to take care of most things myself.
The one thing I'm concerned about is surgical/ob issues. I'm fascinated by surgery, have a lot of nerve, and become very cool and focused in critical situations. I also have pretty unusual manual dexterity, and I'm sure I could do any procedure well as long as I had adequate training.
The issue is training--I would never bill myself as a surgeon or an ob, but if I'm the only doc on call in a rural hospital, I will (probably regularly) be forced into situations where there was no time to transfer and I would have the choice of operating or watching the patient die. Women (possibly without any previous prenatal care) will go into labor and come to the ER and I'll have to deal with it.
How do rural FP's get advanced procedual training? I wish there were FP fellowships available in operative gyn, emergency vascular surgery, appendectomies, etc. Is it possible to design your own "advanced FP" PGY-4?
Are there any FP residencies that are known for being very "high-level" in emphasizing advanced procedures and specialist-level diagnostic ability, possibly with a 4th year available?
Thanks in advance for any advice!