Hello everyone, this is Ian. I think this is my first official contribution to our blog (yikes). Well, I believe my wife is right when she says it would be a shame not to document the truly unique experience that I am having here in Jackman, Maine; population: 706 (make that 707 for the next 6 weeks). I am fulfilling my PA school assigment to do a 6-week family practice clinical rotation in a rural setting, and I don't think there is a more appropriate place than here to earn the title of "rural". It has been almost 2 weeks now of being up here, and everday I am discovering the fascinating quirks and qualities of this strange new winterly (isolated)world.
Jackman is the last stop on your way from western Maine up into Canada, about 20 miles from the border. The nearest town/settlement with more than about 200 people in it is about 50 miles away. It is known as the snowmobiling capitol of Maine, with good reason. Jackman is a beautiful place, well, I should clarify that the surrounding countrside is beautiful. This is forest country filled with thousands of acres of forest and hundreds of miles of logging roads and snowmobile/ATV trails. This is also Moose country where, no kidding, the moose do outnumber the people. Unfortunately I havn't seen any yet, moose that is, but I hope that will change before I go. It is also home to Jackman Region Health Center where I will be spending the next several weeks learning the ways of rural medicine.
The health center consists of a family practice office, a mini-laboratory, an urgent care room, and a 12 bed nursing home attached to the side. This is mainly a one doc operation. Dr. Doyle has been here for 22 years and is here most of the time. This includes being on call every night incase any emergency happens and I mean ANY emergency. There is another doctor and another PA that take turns covering the weekends in case of emergency and occasionaly fill in when Dr. Doyle is away. The other staff here were many hats. We have one nurse who is our phlebotomist, lab technician, and lab manager. We have another nurse who is our part time receptionist, clinic nurse, medical records manager, and x-ray technician. These people are wonderful and they are very good at what they do. I hope to share over the next few weeks the great (and often humerous ) idopsyncrasies of practicing medicine in such a way. Here is an example:
Our wonderful labratory person has Friday's as her "on-call day" where if there is any blood work to be done, then we are to call her in to work from home. An occasion just so happened that we had to call her in to perform some blood work last friday morning. After she finished the tests that we needed here in the clinic, she said, just as normal as can be, " I will be on my sled, so just call me and I will come right in". For those who may not understand the significance........one: a "sled" is the term for snowmobile around here, and two: most lab technicians in the world usually do not take call while on their snowmobiles. How great is that.
4 comments:
Ian! Its so good to hear from you. Jackman sounds pretty desolate. I've taken a trip through on Google Maps and it looks quaint. Thanks for the update.
Fun! It's kind of like going back to the small towns of a simpler time...but high-tech.
he he! I enjoyed this blog entry, cuz we live near the Bagdad Clinic and we pretty much see this kind of thing everyday. Rural life is very interesting, isn't it??? But, there are some amazing people out there in the middle of nowhere. And people really do care about each other when the place is so small! Enjoy your experience and hopefully you will get a chance to see the wife and kiddos soon!!
Love,
The Bagdad Johnson's
Next they will be asking you to do house calls, or would it be more likely to make an ice-fishing house call.
This is great stuff, thanks for sharing.
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