Hamilton College students job shadow St. Elizabeth Medical Center family medicine residents

UTICA, N.Y. — Five Hamilton College students, who are interested in health careers, recently spent time shadowing physicians in the St. Elizabeth Medical Center family-medicine residency program.

The students participated in the 12th consecutive year of the program entitled “A Week in the Life of a Family Medicine Resident,” Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) said in a news release.

The students were Michael Carducci, Aaron Oh, Sofia Rachad, Alyson Skelly and Abigail Tulchinsky.

About the program

The students’ days began at 7 a.m. with a morning meeting, during which residents and medical students gathered for presentations on a variety of medical conditions and case studies.

From 8 a.m. until late afternoon, the students shadowed residents in family medicine, internal medicine, surgery, cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), and pediatrics.

The shadowing took place at the St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare campuses of MVHS, Central New York Cardiology, or one of several MVHS medical offices nearby. MVHS is an affiliation of Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare and St. Elizabeth Medical Center (SEMC), both of Utica. The two organizations teamed up in March 2014.

Residency is a “critical” three-to-seven-year period during which recent medical-school graduates continue their medical education under the guidance of faculty physicians to prepare them to practice on their own.

Students watched as physicians saw patients ranging from babies to geriatric patients in the family-medicine offices, according to MVHS.

The residency program is an important tool for recruiting family-medicine physicians to the area, Dr. Mark Warfel, director of the family-medicine residency program, said in the release.

“Historically, 50 percent of the program’s graduates have stayed to work in the upstate New York region to practice, adding to the primary care work force,” said Warfel. “Our collaboration with Hamilton College is valuable at this time of physician shortages.”

Leslie Bell, director of health-professions advising at Hamilton College, added, “The program is extremely beneficial to Hamilton students interested in medicine because it enables them to see first-hand what the daily work of a physician in family medicine entails; to observe the doctor-patient relationship; and to learn first-hand from residents about an aspect of medical education (residency) with which they are largely unfamiliar. The extended shadowing time frame enables participants to confirm their career decision by providing them with a more realistic understanding of the healthcare profession.”

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com