I want to work with the underserved...whats the best place to work?

[uclaussr]

---

Members do not see this ad.

My ideal career is to be a family medicine doc and work with underserved communities: minorities, immigrants, the poor,....so is it best to work at a hospital setting? academia? private practice?
I also want to teach residents and med students and put on workshops about health promotion and disease prevention in local schools and the community.
What type of work setting would be best for me?

 

[Hoody]

A rural VA....except you'll work really hard. and if you have to commute, it might not leave much time for EC's, but with all the time off, you could take AL and do some.

 

[Thirteeen]

My ideal career is to be a family medicine doc and work with underserved communities: minorities, immigrants, the poor,....so is it best to work at a hospital setting? academia? private practice?
I also want to teach residents and med students and put on workshops about health promotion and disease prevention in local schools and the community.
What type of work setting would be best for me?

In LA you should not have a problem finding one of these sites. I would recommend contacting someone in the UCLA/Drew medical program. They have several settings in underserved communities which are used for training physicians interested in that area of medicine. Hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[uclaussr]

thanks for the replies guys..what im asking more specifically is would i have more opportunities to work with this population in academia, the hospital setting, or private practice?

 

[LizzyM]

As a physician, I would suggest seeking out a Federally Qualified Health Clinic (FQHC) that is also a site for residents doing ambulatory care rotations. These clinics are located in many places that are underserved, they provide primary and preventive care, and at least some will provide you with opportunity to supervise and teach residents (for which you will have a "contributed service" faculty appointment meaning that you are a member of the medical school faculty but that your income comes from patient care activities, not from the university).

You will receive a salary as an employee of a FQHC so it is not exacty private practice but the funding works better for patients dependent on Medicare/Medicaid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Qualified_Health_Center

 

[VeeTeeHokies]

My ideal career is to be a family medicine doc and work with underserved communities: minorities, immigrants, the poor,....so is it best to work at a hospital setting? academia? private practice?
I also want to teach residents and med students and put on workshops about health promotion and disease prevention in local schools and the community.
What type of work setting would be best for me?

I specifically asked your question in one of my interviews. I told them that I really want to live in a rural area and work in a teaching hospital when I'm an attending and they told me that there are rural teaching hospitals in underserved areas and in fact you will likely learn more as a primary care doc in these places because you are THE doctor (specialists in these areas are rare) so what is coming through your door, you have to treat, or learn to treat.

But to answer your question more thoroughly, all 3 are plausible (might have to join academia at a DO school to get the more rural experience though). I personally would prefer a hospital job because the business logistics behind running a private practice aren't something that I even remotely want to tackle. When I was doing my rotations for my CNA license, we were in a VERY small rural hospital (3 beds, which were more like gurneys in the ER). So they're definitely out there too.

 

[UbuntuGM]

Compton.

 

[kansaskid]

I know there are programs in the Chicago area like this, working with the patient population in the South Side. I think some of these are the FQHC clinics LizzyM was talking about. This is absolutely what I am most interested in working in as well!

 

[NoMatterWhat]

I'm interested as well. How to seek out a site in my area???

PS: Nevermind; I've figured it out.

 

[aarsdam]

I work for the policy branch of the American Academy of Family Physicians and both the director and assistant director of our organization are family docs who split their time between policy, research and clinic hours. There are a lot of exciting things going on now on the policy side of FQHCs due to the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration's focus on healthcare for the underserved.

FQHCs, Rural Health Clinics, etc. have a really tough time getting doctors, so there's no shortage of opportunities for someone looking to go into that kind of work. You may also want to think about an NHSC scholarship or the loan repayment program as an opportunity to get your feet wet for a few years to see how much you enjoy the work.

You can check out our site dedicated to tracking the FQHC program as a whole if you want to get an idea of where centers are located and what kinds of services are available: http://www.udsmapper.org (registration is free).

 

[NoMatterWhat]

I can't register. The "organizations" dropbox doesn't work......