ROMP Launches Electronic Newsletter
The times, they are a changin’! ROMP is proud to announce and to share with you our new electronic newsletter. Gone are the days of mass mail outs and piles of paper; in an effort to increase efficiency and conserve paper, we have reformatted our newsletter to an electronic version that will be sent via e-mail three times annually. The new e-newsletter will continue to provide articles that are reflective of ROMP, community and university activities as they occur throughout the year. Our newsletter will also feature a different ROMP community and practicing physician profile in each issue and will continue to outline important dates and events that will occur in the medical community.
Subscribing to the Electronic ROMP Newsletter is easy: we have added a page to the ROMP website that will allow anyone to easily subscribe or unsubscribe to the e-newsletter. Keeping with the existing code of privacy in the ROMP office, your e-mail address and any personal information received through this online subscription will not be shared or sold at anytime. We hope that you find this new format user-friendly and continue to enjoy reading your ROMP newsletter. We would love to hear your feedback. Please e-mail any questions or concerns to romp@romponline.com.
Rural Medicine Week 2007
This summer Rural Medicine Week hit an all time high! The Rural Ontario Medical Program worked with 17 communities in South Central Ontario to provide an exciting learning experience for 110 1st and 2nd year medical students. This is by far the highest number of Rural Medicine Week since it began in 1997, which is a strong testament to the hard work and dedication of the communities involved.
Rural Medicine Week (RMW) is a one week elective experience organized by rural or underserviced communities in conjunction with the Rural Ontario Medical Program. The week provides an opportunity for 1st and 2nd year medical students to gain early exposure to medical practices and opportunities outside of a university teaching center. For many of these students this is their first encounter with real patients in the clinical setting and is an exciting experience. The participating communities, many of which struggle to recruit and retain physicians, use this week to showcase their community with hopes of enticing these learners back for future rotations.
Through scheduled community events, such as farm tours, boat tours, site seeing, theatre and BBQs, the learners are able to participate in the social aspects of rural life. The learners are integrated socially with local physicians, council and community members during many of these events to create community contacts and round out the experience. One student who attended RMW this year said “Amazing Week. Should be mandatory at all schools. Learned a great deal and the preceptor was amazing.” This year was the first year that Rural Medicine Week was mandatory for Queens’ and Ottawa Medical students.
As part of the curriculum for some learners and a great way to begin a summer for others, ROMP offered three different Rural Medicine Weeks. The following communities hosted RMW for first and second year medical students from Queen’s and Ottawa University during the week of May 22nd – 25th: Barrie, Brantford, Cambridge, Cobourg, Lindsay, Mount Forest, Peterborough and Port Perry. The second RMW took place June 4th – 8th for pre-clerkship medical students from the University of Toronto, Queen’s and Ottawa medical students. These students traveled to Fort Erie, Georgina, Midland, Niagara Falls, Orangeville, Orillia and Trent Hills. The last Rural Medicine Week of the summer was held in both Norfolk County and Port Colborne for McMaster medical students from July 3rd – 6th. ROMP visited each of these communities during their respective weeks to meet the students and participate in a community activity. We always enjoy the short amount of time that we spend in each community during RMW and know that the learners are also taking away valuable experiences and fond memories.
We would like to thank all the communities that helped to make Rural Medicine Week 2007 successful and we look forward to working with everyone again next year.