Rural Family Medicine - Westfield (Dr. Berke)

Rural Family Medicine - Westfield (Dr. Berke)

wakka_x_3 31 Mar 2008 01:10

Rural medicine was really good. It was my first rotation and I went to Westfield to work with Dr. Berke. My expierence was really educational and worthwhile, my only compliant was the housing. You have to be back every Monday for lecture. Other than that, I have very little complaints. Really, it depends on who your preceptor is, but you do get to do a lot more than most places around here (again, it just depends on ur preceptor and the office, i know some ppl who had amazing URBAN experiences here). So, if i were to do it again, I probably would not b/c I hated driving back and forth and i also hated the housing, but… overall, i got to do venipuncture, shots, see GYN/OB stuff, see orthopedic surgeries (all with respective attendings, meaning not with the family medicine attending) but the point is, my family medicine attending let me see things I was interested in.

I guess I can make a pros/cons list:

PROS:
NO residents
Get to do everything
You are really important and valuable to the team b/c there are few practioners.
You can leave buffalo for a while
You have excuses not to work on Weekends, b/c you have to be back for MOnday lecture
You dont have to do inpatient family medicine here in buffalo (which i heard can be hellish)
Most people have a good experience, I hear Olean is also a good site.
You get away from crazy classmates and are the only student there
see deliveries before OB rotation
see orthopedic surgeries before surgery rotation
experience working with infants/kids before peds

CONS:
too much driving
housing unreliabe, no internet (where I was in Westfield, i hear some locations have internet)
i had to share a room for 3 nights
No friends around
everything in westfield closed at 7, i had to study at the hospital
only chinese person in westfield, except on chinese family that owned restaurant
(if you do it in the winter, driving is worse)

sooo.. my compliants are really just superficial. overall excellent experience.

Re: Rural Family Medicine - Westfield (Dr. Berke)

wakka_x_3 31 Mar 2008 01:31

I cannot speak highly enough about my experience with the rural family medicine rotation. I do not know about the other rural locations, but Westfield is great. I worked with Dr. Berke and it was true family medicine; all ages and all different pathology. I even assisted on C-sections and ortho surgeries. We would round on any inpatients in the morning, office hours all afternoon, then any admissions/deliveries in the evening (or middle of the night). Electronic records, so as a student you can write all the notes and even prescribe meds (with approval). There were no other students and no residents so it was an optimal learning experience side by side with the attending. Doing this rural rotation convinced me to go into a career in family medicine. And, I went back to Westfield for an elective in 4th year. The cons are that you have to drive back to Buffalo for Monday morning lectures, and the apartment provided in Westfield is tiny and without cable (again, not sure about other locations). That being said, I still highly recommend the experience.

Re: Rural Family Medicine - Westfield (Dr. Berke)

wakka_x_3 17 Aug 2008 04:59

For the rural family med sites they usually don't have you do weekend calls (which is awesome!)…that is unless you volunteer for them and want to. But I didn't, and I don't think very many if any students actually did. The preceptors know that you need to go back to Buffalo for Monday lecture.

In addition…the Westfield Hospital is closing down slowly because of the Berger Commission hospital merger (the same one that is slowly closing down Gates, ECMC, etc). So there is virtually no more inpatient for you to follow. I don't know if Dr. Holmes is going to just have you do 4 weeks of outpatient in Westfield/Mayville and then do 2 weeks of inpatient back in Buffalo instead…you might want to ask him. For me, I ended up doing all 6 weeks as outpatient in Westfield because UB hadn't anticipated that the hospital in Westfield was closing down. You might want to go back to Buffalo for your inpatient, just to get that exposure becuase inpatient and outpatient are extremely different.

No internet in the house. There is the library (http://www.pattersonlibrary.info/Links.html) that has wireless. IF you're really desparate (I was one evening) you can bring your wireless laptop and sit outside on the library steps (it's lit at night, but beware the bats) and steal their internet. I heard another student would park outside the cafes and use her laptop while sitting in her car. But basically if you just want to check email you can go to the clinic early and use their computers. Or you can use the computers in Westfield hospital (the hospital is open 24 hours daily, even if there are no patients!). I didn't really miss the internet though.

The Quality Mart supermaket is pretty ghetto. There is a Family Dollar store, a CVS, a MacDonalds, a Wilson Farms, and a ton of cute restaurants…The house you live in is in a pretty central location. (And yes, this means that it is near the town's ONE STOPLIGHT!) I even met Larry the Locksmith on my first day there when I was a med stud genius who locked my keys into my car after my first day of work.

Also, if you get a chance, be sure to keep driving down Route-394 (Portage Rd) one day and check out the GORGEOUS Lake Chautauqua at the bottom of the hill. If you keep following the road toward Jamestown you'll pass by the Chautaqua Institution, which apparently is a MAJOR tourist attraction for people from all over the country (http://www.ciweb.org/). And it apparently boasts the 8th finest tennis court in all of the USA. Perhaps someday I'll return to hit some tennis balls there…

Last edited on 17 Aug 2008 05:06 by wakka_x_3 Show more