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rural

ScotGEM’s first Wild Trials!

ScotGEM’s first wild trials experience, where they undertook various emergency and wilderness medicine scenarios as a team in a competition with 23 other medical schools across the UK.

Obstetrics in the Arctic

Amber chose to go to Norway for her elective placement in her final year of ScotGEM, to the city of Tromsø, in the north of Norway. She got to experience medicine in the Arctic, from skiing to work, sweet treats to celebrate the return of the sun and refreshing dips in the arctic waters!

My South African Elective

I am a final year ScotGEM student and this year international electives are finally back up and running! For my first block I was lucky enough to be able to go back to South Africa…

A New Doctor in the Western Isles

The Western Isles hold some of the most beautiful and untouched scenery Scotland has to offer. From the sprawling white beaches to the ragged hilly landscapes, it is rich with unparalleled beauty and photographic potential.

A Rural Journey

Looking back, it is hard to pinpoint exactly where my excitement and drive for rural medicine evolved from.

A Year in the Highlands

As part of the ScotGEM course, a year is spent undertaking a longitudinal integrated clerkship. I chose to come to the Highlands and wanted to be near Inverness, and I was assigned my practice in Tain. Before starting the course I had only been to Scotland twice, had never even heard of Tain, and didn’t know what to expect. Our course has an emphasis on general practice, and before starting my LIC I had enjoyed my GP placements but wasn’t sure if I would be better suited to secondary care. My main concern was that general practice meant working alone and I would miss working in a team. I also worried that there would be a lot of referring in general practice which meant not seeing a patient’s journey in secondary care. On a more general note, I was concerned that a career in medicine meant sacrificing hobbies and interests.

Dr Roger Strasser and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine

In our latest interview, Callum speaks to Dr Roger Strasser, Professor of Rural Health at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and Founding Dean Emeritus of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) in Canada. Like ScotGEM, NOSM has a distinct remote & rural focus and the team behind ScotGEM visited NOSM as part of the establishment of our course.

Remote & Rural Medical Education

In this second part of the interview, Robert discusses what things to weigh up if you are thinking of studying or working in a rural environment. He also discusses his role in ScotGEM and his belief in the novel Generalist Clinical Mentor – ‘GCM’ – approach that enlists experienced GPs to mentor groups of students for continued periods of time throughout their medical education.

What Is It Like To Be A Rural Doctor?

Dr Robert Scully is the Lead Generalist Clinical Mentor on ScotGEM and has extensive experience of working rurally as a doctor. After completing his GP training he worked as a Rural Practitioner on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. He sat down (socially distanced) from Year 3 student Andrew and discussed why he joined the ScotGEM programme, why he loves working as a generalist doctor and the things to consider if you are working in a remote and rural community as a medical student, or doctor.

Auchtermuchty – Wear The Fox Hat?

A few weeks after returning from the Christmas and New Year break in 1st year, it came time to mix up the Generalist Clinical Mentor (GCM) groups that I have written about previously here. We all said goodbye to our maiden GCM families and began an 18-week voyage with a new group that would take us to our final destination – the main 1st year exams in June.

Learning in our Medical Families

One of the innovative aspects of ScotGEM – and I think many of the cohort would argue, the best – is the creation of the ‘Generalist Clinical Mentor’ or ‘GCM’ as it is often referred to. The GCM is an experienced GP who works part-time local to the university when they are not working with ScotGEM.

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