I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) for my first two years of medical school. Its mission is to educate physicians dedicated to family medicine, to serve the needs of rural Minnesota and Native American communities.
UMD faculty had mercurial ways to discern whether applicants were truly interested in rural practice. One confided that he often asked, “When was the last time you were on a tractor?”
A related question recently popped into my head: “How do you know you’re practicing rural medicine?” I’d submit that your practice is definitely rural when patients arrive on tractors and you can see a farm from a hospital window.
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Postscript. Other UMD grads will get this. It took 20-some years, but I’m finally fulfilling something close to the school’s mission. Osceola is right over the Minnesota border. Some of our patients are Minnesotans! I’m still a mental health and addiction guy, but I’m actually doing some family medicine. It’s never too late for you, too! ✸