Eastern AHEC Rural Health Immersion - Student Reflections: Jillian Flynn
Healthy Acadia has served as Maine’s Eastern Area Health Education Center (AHEC) since 2023. Our service area includes Washington, Hancock, Waldo, and Knox counties.
Maine AHECs provide community-based clinical training experiences to health professions students; encourage Maine youth to pursue careers in the health professions; offer training and continuing education programs to practicing health professionals; and develop public health approaches to address current and emerging community needs.
As part of this program, Healthy Acadia and community partners work together to create rural health immersion opportunities for health professions students to learn more about rural and underserved communities, including Rural Health Immersions (RHI) for Care for the Underserved Pathways (CUP) AHEC Scholars. and community-based experiential learning opportunities for non-CUP scholars.
We will periodically publish guest blog posts from AHEC Scholars who chose to share their experience with the program.
Guest post contributed by Jillian Flynn UNE PA Student. Jillian participated in our March 2023 RHI and reflects on the experience.
On Tuesday morning, we made our way to Mount Desert Island Hospital for a full day of learning about the operations of a hospital in rural Maine. MDI Hospital is an independent hospital, one of just a handful left in the state. While being a member of a larger system like Maine Health or Northern Light has a multitude of benefits, members of the MDI community are thankful to have their own entity. Their independence allows for more community involvement and meeting the hospital’s unique needs.
Once we got checked into the hospital and completed our COVID-19 screenings, we traveled to a conference room where we would participate in the morning huddle. This is where we met Sarah Pasquine, PA-C, a hospitalist and a 2022 graduate of the UNE PA Program- also a past AHEC CUP Scholar. After introductions and questions, Sarah gave us a synopsis of the patients we would be seeing that day.
During the morning huddle, we heard from Sarah, as well as those providing occupational therapy, physical therapy, palliative care, and pharmacology, as well as care managers, and other healthcare professionals working through each patient’s plan for the day. Sarah noted that these huddles used to take place in person, however, they transitioned to an online format during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that it was a preferred method. It was fascinating to see the unique aspects of care teams in a rural setting- last week they threw a birthday party for a patient who had been staying with them for quite some time- Sarah referred to the patient as “family”.
After the morning huddle, Sarah once again fielded any of our questions- her desire to help us learn was evident. From there we split into two groups- one participated in rounding with Sarah while the other group toured the hospital with Dr. Julian Kuffler, Director of Medical Education at MDI Hospital.
My first rotation was with Dr. Kuffler who began the tour by showcasing the multitude of resources that the hospital staff has at their fingertips to offer patients. It was clear that the team at MDI Hospital took years to develop the current model of care, and were always looking to better the current way of operating. Dr. Kuffler then gave us a physical tour of the hospital, showing us the brand-new, state-of-the-art MRI machine, an update from the previous traveling MRI in a trailer. Further, we saw the labor and delivery unit, the ICU, the emergency department, the OR, and much more. Dr. Kuffler even showed us a new project- the Kogod Center for Medical Education, a housing facility for students working at the hospital.
During our walk back to the hospital, we were reminded that when you are in rural Maine, you are one with nature. We saw three crows, dive-bombing a bald eagle.
Next, my group rounded with Sarah, interacting with various members of the care team along the way. We were able to witness the care team problem solve the current long-term care facility shortage. We saw Sarah interact with patients in the most compassionate way I have personally ever seen a provider do so. Due to protecting the privacy of patients, I cannot share any individual stories about patients, however, they were wonderful and wanted to help us learn- another ode to rural communities immensely caring about helping others.
We then moved to a meet and greet during lunch where we met a handful of MDI Hospital administrators. Dana Fadley, Vice President of Provider and Ancillary Services, stopped by to chat with us about the hiring process. Others stopped by to say hello and wish us luck on our journey, welcoming us back to MDI at any point. Maria Donahue, the fantastic leader of our trip and an MDI resident herself, then answered our questions about schools and housing in the area.
After making our way back to the hotel, a group of us went for a walk on Shore Path, leading us right by the hospital again. On our walk, we talked about a variety of aspects to rural care that we hadn’t thought about previously. Overall, it was a great morning and we left feeling full of knowledge with the understanding that there is still so much more to learn.