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One of the reasons that I decided to do the PRIME program was because I’ve always been
interested in working with underserved populations. And I’m also attracted to the rural communities
because I really value the sense of community that they have here. This is the beginning
of my OB/GYN rotation up in Jackson at Sutter Amador Hospital. I’m working with Dr. Young.
He’s my attending and it’s only the first week and this morning, I was able to participate
in a C-section for twins and so that was very exciting…it was my first birth! It’s very,
it’s definitely very miraculous and magical. Voiceover of Dr. Don Hilty: We’ve recruited
rural students from around the state to go through contextualized training in medicine,
focusing on rural health and doing a fifth year masters to become good leaders and so
far, we’re in our fourth year, twelve students per year and we’re off and running, we’ve
got a lot of momentum and we’ll graduate our first class next year.
PRIME stands for programs in medical education and these are a series of medical student
educational programs located at UC medical school campuses systemwide. Each of our five
PRIME programs and soon to be six, has a special area of focus and a curriculum that is dedicated
to meeting the needs of the medically underserved. The newest expansion of our PRIME program
will come in Fall of 2011, as a new program dedicated to meeting the needs of the Central
Valley, is launched by UC Davis with partnerships involving UCSF Fresno and the UC Merced campus.
The valley has needs in terms of healthcare, but also dental care, behavioral healthcare
and still other forms of care, so UC Merced San Joaquin Valley PRIME is a step in the
right direction. Voiceover of Dr. John Paik-Tesch: We have
a large, uninsured population in Merced and Merced County. We have transportation needs,
lots of, we have a poor infrastructure here for those things and so, patients have a lot
of issues with getting access to health care. I see partnership with the UC as a opportunity
to address many of the needs. Voiceover of Tirza Cannon, UC Davis Rural-PRIME
student: I think the PRIME program is really a phenomenal idea. What attracted me about
the PRIME program was the idea of getting out into the rural communities for your training.
So, it wasn’t theoretical, it was actual training. When I think about practicing medicine,
I’ve always been attracted to helping people who are underserved or less served and definitely,
you see that in the rural communities. Voiceover of Dr. Robert Hartmann: Here, they
get individualized attention every single day and they get that opportunity to interact
with our patients in a way that’s really not that pressured.
One of the reasons we got involved with Rural-PRIME program is that we sort of had this basic
intrinsic feeling that we were missing the opportunity to educate young physicians. Having
a Rural-PRIME program will definitely help us to fill the gaps. Fill the gaps in training
and fill the gaps in being able to recruit health care personnel up to our area.
With medicine, you’re learning different scientific things, different medical things
as you go through, but you’re also learning about yourself. What kind of physician do
I want to be? What kind of qualities do I want to have as a physician? I think my interest
in practicing in a rural community has been strengthened since being here. When I think
about my home base, it’s a rural area.