Hudson Headwaters to start training UVM medical students

By Gordon Woodworth, Chronicle News Editor

Starting next March, six third-year medical students from the University of Vermont will be trained at Hudson Headwaters’ health centers in Warrensburg and Glens Falls.

Dr. John Rugge, founder and CEO of Hudson Headwaters Health Network, said he aims to host 12 UVM medical students in 2018. “We’re hoping that these medical students are interested enough and have good enough memories that on the completion of their training, they would want to come back to the region,” Dr. Rugge told The Chronicle.

“We’re also looking at developing a residency program, so the reason for doing the medical student training now is so students are familiar with us and might consider applying for their post-graduate training here.

“We’re looking at establishing that pipeline…so we know physicians as they train, and then they choose to come here.”

Dr. Tucker Slingerland, Hudson Headwaters’ vice president of network strategy and a family physician, will move from Moreau Family Health to the Warrensburg Health Center “partly to be closer to the students.”

Students follow subset of patients

He said UVM’s program for third-year medical students involves “longitudinal integrated clerkships.” Instead of doing the traditional month-long rotations in specialties like pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology and internal medicine, students follow a subset of patients as they move through the health care system.

Dr. Rugge said, “If a patient delivers a baby, the medical students go to the delivery room. If a patient has to have an appendectomy, they go to the operating room. If it’s to follow up on their depression, they are seen in the office.”

Dr. Rugge calls the program “innovative,” and said each student will have a Hudson Headwaters physician heading up the training. He said those doctors will likely be compensated financially, though he said details are still being worked out.

“We’ve also been enlisting the interest of a number of specialists around town who are eager to participate,” Dr. Rugge said, “in part because it’s fun and exciting to teach, and in part because this is how we bring new doctors to the area.”

Dr. Slingerland said the training “comes at a critical juncture for medical students. It’s really their first clinical exposure, and it’s prime time for making a good impression.” He said the hope is these medical students “will choose to practice eventually in rural communities. This will give them a taste of that, and hopefully we can steer them in that direction.

“The real value will be when the students get to know patients very well, and over time become an asset to the care team, and perhaps even inspire change.”

Dr. Slingerland said Hudson Headwaters will continue its long-standing relationship with Albany Medical Center. Two third-year students train each month with Hudson Headwaters, he said.

Dr. Rugge said training medical students here could help recruit and retain physicians. “We are looking for academic-caliber physicians who are at the top of their class and who want to come here to practice, and [we can] offer that teaching opportunity as another enhancement to the setting we offer.”

Is that a selling point? “It is for a number of physicians,” Dr. Rugge said. “It creates a more stimulating environment, it makes the day go faster. These days with so much primary care being team-based, it’s one more person on that time with contact with patients, and we think that will help us continue to enhance the level of service we are able to provide. It enhances our position.”

Dr. Rugge said Hudson Headwaters is “prepared to provide housing” for the six medical students coming next March, with support from the Hudson Headwaters Health Foundation.

He said the partnership with UVM “is intended to be a door-opener to get program support in the academic arena” from the federal government.

Copyright © 2016 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.