The Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program is modeled after several health careers mentorship programs at various universities within the United States. The program was developed by Edward Tan with the help of Mr. Wayne Heide of the ORNH. What started as a 3 week rural medicine exposure trip for three aspiring medical students (Edward, Gordon, and Sunny) has now been turned into a yearly program which is the first of its kind in Manitoba. Based on their positive experiences on their trip, they now work in conjunction with various health personnel in Manitoba to develop a program where interested students could shadow physicians during their daily routines and run the program the following semester as a coordinator.
2010/11 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
2009/2010 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Sarah Lesperance
Cassandra Adduri
David Oleski
Matthew Pierce
Stephanie Dudok
Oana Florescu
Anahita Shaeri
Alyssa Janke
Bhavdeep Rehal
Phoebe Thiessen
2008/09 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Eric Flynn
- Corey Veldman
- Federico Lopez Ficher
- Daniel Palisky
- Jina Pagura
- Christina Nguyen
- Emily Bluden
- Justin Cloutier
- Nathan Coleman
2007/08 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Scott Perreault
- Andrew Francis
- Lori Adamson
- Royce Van
- Michael Gousseau
- Tyler Bullen
- Ashley Globa
- Amber Mather
- Cheryl White
2006/07 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Marie Ewonchuk
- Russell Price
- Sherwin Gacutan
- Johanna Rockenstein
- Karin Statkewich
- Carla-Jean Thompson
- Deborah Turner
- Kyle Burkett
- Caroline Weiss
2005/06 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Mani Chhibba
- Sartaj Sandhu
- Kanwal Brar
- Lawrence Kei
- Elona Turley
- Chantelle Hercina
- Leathia Fiorino
- Erin Riordan
- Victor Tran
2004/05 Rural Manitoba Health Mentorship Program Students
- Edward Tan
- Sunny Singh
- Gordon Li
The logs below are few of the entries from journals kept by Edward, Gordon, and Sunny while on their rural medicine exposure trip in September 2005.
Edward
I just finished my second day here at Bethesda Hospital. I spent the day in the Community Care Program shadowing Dr. Curtis Krahn. The staff was really friendly and made me feel welcomed. This was my first time working with an oncologist and with cancer patients. I spent the majority of the morning chatting with patients as they received their chemotherapy and waited to see Dr. Krahn. While doing his rounds, Dr. Krahn took the time to explain to me the case history of each patient and their prescribed treatment. I was even able to listen to one patient's arrhythmia. I found myself engaged in conversion with Dr. Krahn the entire time, even answering medical questions that he asked me. At that moment I felt like a real medical student.
I spent the day at Sandy Bay Reserve shadowing Dr. Allan Macklem. This was my first experience at a reserve. The first thing that I noticed was that Dr. Macklem was the only doctor at the Health Clinic that day. I asked him if this was always the case and he replied "yes". Turns out that the people living at Sandy Bay only have the opportunity to see a doctor 4 days a week and only between 1pm to 4pm. As you could imagine the number of patients that Dr. Macklem attended to that day was astonishing. In a span of three hours he had seen approximately 40 patients! I was able to witness first hand the work a doctor must do at a reserve and how to overcome the problems associated with it. If I hadn't gone on this trip, I know that I would have never had an eye opening experience such as this one.
I woke up early today and went to the OR where a saw a C-section being performed by Dr. Jim Ross. I was surprised by how quickly the procedure went. One moment I was standing there scratching my nose, the next moment there was a baby in front of me. Babies might be really cute, but when they're first born wow are they not cute at all. The remainder of the day I spent watching various other procedures and annoying the med student (Dorota Linda) that I befriended earlier in the week. She was really nice and helpful. She taught me a bunch of anagrams that she had learnt while in med school l. Lets just hope I can remember them when I need to use them.
Gordon
Dr. Chin, an ophthalmologist from Winnipeg, came in today to perform cataract surgeries. He let me observe while he performed the surgery. This was a very cool surgery to watch because of the precision and technology involved in the procedure. Dr. Chin used a machine that used sonic waves to break up the lens and the same machine to remove the lens with suction. The surgery was very precise and Dr. Chin did the entire procedure through two small incisions he made. The anesthesiologist was very helpful and guided me through each step the ophthalmologist was performing.
Today I was in the Imaging department. They had an X-ray department, ultrasound, and a CT scanner. I got to see the technicians perform many X-rays and even help a little bit around the department. I also got to see the Radiologist use the fluoroscope, which allowed us to see an X-ray in real-time video and watch the barium sulfate go through the digestive system. The ultrasound technician also showed me a lot and was very nice and took the time to explain what she was looking for. The CT scanner was not up yet because this wing was just built and a technician was still training on how to use the machine.
Sunny
Today it was my turn to be in the ER and the OR. I worked under Dr. Quessada (Ricardo), who is an anaesthesiologist and GP. Dr. Quessada explained how he commutes everyday from Winnipeg for 14 years all because his family doesn't want to move. This has shown me that he must obviously have pure dedication to do this everyday. The first patient was mentally challenged and had a laceration on his head at the rear. It took 3 people to try and control him while Dr. Quessada tried to administer anaesthetic to freeze his wound. The patient was too restless to give sutures; so then he decided to use this glue which is also good for closing wounds. I asked why not just put him to sleep, and he said that there is always risk whenever you use anaesthetics because (especially children) cannot handle larger doses. So in this case it was not reasonable enough to use it. Therefore a special type of organic glue was used in order to close the gash, this is very good for children as well. Then I sat in on a patient who had varicose veins and needed them stripped. Dr. Ross was doing the surgery with a large team of people. Although Dr. Ross commands a lot of respect, there was a lot of teamwork. It's like there is no time for niceties when it comes to surgery and this is obviously because the persons life is the most important. The nurses were very meticulous in counting and recounting used products since the nurses wanted to make sure nothing is left "inside" the patients or lost. I also sat in on watching a women have surgery on an "incisionnal hernia". Once Dr. Ross cut into the patient it was determined that she was diagnosed wrongly. In truth, it was that the patient had taken Clavex which is a strong anticoagulant. This caused an encysted haematoma which was then removed and she was sutured up. The working anaesthesiologist was also helping to train a 4th year med student from UM named Dorota Linda. They worked closely as a team and it wasn't just that he was training her, it was more like a group teaching lesson which I thought was very helpful and supporting for Dorota. Another old women came in with abdominal pains. Dr. Quessada explained that they don't just randomly request tests, but they request preliminary ones. This prevents an excess of workload on the Xray Techs and other Lab members and keeping costs down for hospitals. Also it can point the physician in the proper direction so that they know what tests to order next.
Today I was in the X-Ray and Imaging Lab. The radiologist was not in today so there was no "Barium scans", but only X-ray's. Dane Johnson showed me around as well as Gary Davis. They were undergoing a massive system change. They do not use films anymore. There are no more films because a) they are too expensive and b) they are hard to ship to other places (aka Winnipeg). So now, they take the X-ray's upon cartridges which are then uploaded to a computer. The images can then be modified by changing the lighting, density, etc by the technician so that they are in good viewing order. The X-Ray is then sent via computer to the PACS system. The doctors can then load up the image and display them on large, high resolution monitors. This is an excellent method because these x-ray's can now be sent long distances instantly, with no shipping. Also films no longer have to be purchased, so it's cheaper. However, this can also cause problems, because the doctors who have always been doing things a certain way really don't like the idea of the x-ray's being on computer and are having a harder time dealing with the x-rays. Also, they must now be computer savvy in order to call up the X-ray. Even though long distance transmission has become more efficient, short distance transmission is not go great because now you no longer have the option of grabbing an x-ray film and going to show whomever you want. You have to be near a computer station that has PACS access. This also means that more computers need to be bought, however this does far outweigh the continual need of films in the old system. Some problems I observed there was that there was conflicting training going on. One technician would use a certain process whereas the other technician would use a different process. This can lead to misleading x-rays and misdiagnosed treatments by the doctors or even wasted time looking for mis-processed x-rays. Also what I noticed was that there was a lack of room. There were 2 x-ray machines (which is more than enough since there was not a huge volume of x-rays coming through) but there was only 1 control station which 4 technicians had to share, thus slowing down times greatly. They were working on constructing a new control station room in order to speed things along. Although I do think it was a good experience because you do get to see what goes on behind the scenes. A hospital is not just nurses and doctors; there is a huge support staff without which a hospital truly cannot run. Also today someone needed a CT Scan but they were turned away because there is no tech to run it and it's not up and running so they were sent to Winnipeg.
