The story of the Selkirk College Rural Pre-Medicine Program is the story of why community colleges are vital to Canada’s education system. Its genesis arrived through a need to fill a critical gap with creative solutions and tangible outcomes, a model that is now playing out in the classrooms of the Castlegar Campus.
The three-year Rural Pre-Medicine Program launched in September with its first cohort of 17 eager students. With passionate mentors and dedicated instructors, the program aims to build a foundation of experience and knowledge students will need to prepare for entrance into medical school.
With a diverse background and intimate understanding of the challenges faced by students in smaller communities, Rural Pre-Medicine Program Coordinator Elizabeth Lund is the motivating presence behind Selkirk College’s push to bolster the numbers of rural doctors.
“If you come from a rural area, you are among those most likely to go back to a rural area,” says Rural Pre-Medicine Program Coordinator Elizabeth Lund. “If you want to populate the rural areas with physicians, you need to provide the proper education to students who live in rural areas and have a strong desire to get into medical school.”
The curriculum in the Rural Pre-Medicine Program weaves together courses tailored to rural medicine with courses recommended for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). Extra training in skills such as meditation and conflict resolution, leadership, communication and interprofessional skills, small business training and MCAT preparation supports students’ futures as physicians and their medical school applications.
“People understand that this is something that can form one piece of a really long term solution to a big problem,” says Lund. “This is not a problem for doctors or the government, really this is a problem in our society across Canada where there is a big difference between rural and urban.”
A Deep Understanding of Rural Life
Lund’s background is perfectly suited for spearheading the effort to help populate small town medical clinics and rural hospitals with top-notch doctors equipped with a skillset that adds an extra dose of compassion.
Raised in the village of Salmo in the southern interior of British Columbia—population 1,100—Lund describes herself as a typical “Kootenay kid.” Benefiting from the values of a tight-knit community and taking advantage of all the outdoor recreation advantages of mountain life, Lund has fond memories of growing up off the beaten path.
Graduating with a small high school class in 1981, Lund headed off to the University of Victoria to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemistry.
“I wanted to figure out why things work the way they do,” Lund says of her passion for science. “I thought to get down to a smaller and smaller level would help explain what was happening on an atomic scale. The reason behind what you see… the reason ice floats. All those questions you have when you are a kid and you are curious; this was one way to answer those questions.”
After earning her BSc, Lund continued on a PhD in Chemistry in the 1990s when women at that level were in the distinct minority. Her education included post-doctoral fellowships with a pharmaceutical company in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia.
Just as Lund’s career in science was hitting its stride, she took a sudden break. In grad school she began to explore Buddhism and while working in Vancouver, Lund met two senior monks at a tiny forest monastery in Birken, north of Whistler.
“I heard people talking about loving and kindness and meditation, I wanted to learn more about it in order to survive the rigours of grad school,” Lund explains. “It fit really well and gave me a means of answering questions beyond the physical world.”
In 1996, Lund traveled to Thailand to become ordained and spent 10 years in the remote northern area of the country as a Therevadin Buddhist Nun. Returning to Canada in 2006 to help care for her elderly mother in Salmo, Lund began teaching at Selkirk College.
Helping Solve the Problem of a Growing Need
The mounting challenges with health care in rural Canada have gained traction in the media over the last few years. With shrinking government budgets, an aging population and societal shifts forming the basis of these struggles, more attention has been focused on the gap between urban and rural.
Alicia Pongracz is a student in the first Rural Pre-Medicine Program cohort that is diligently building skills on the Castlegar Campus.
Three years ago, Lund and her colleagues in the Selkirk College School of University Arts & Sciences were looking for ways to bolster second year sciences at the Castlegar Campus. A story on CBC radio about the doctor shortage in rural British Columbia triggered the idea for a program that would help address the need with homegrown solutions.
Lund was charged with putting together the proposal and soliciting support. For almost two years she put her skills in research and passion for education to the test as she approached senior levels of government, the Doctors of BC, local physicians, the University of British Columbia and anybody else that would listen.
“There was a lot of pounding the pavement… I had to become a salesperson,” she says. “That’s the last thing I thought I would ever do, but I was selling something that I totally believe in. It ceases to be selling and becomes talking to people to let them know what we want to do.”
The First Cohort a Brilliant Example of What is Possible
On a sunny late-September afternoon in Castlegar, Selkirk College administration joined representatives from the Doctors of BC, the Ministry of Health and health care professionals from around the Kootenay region for a special reception to welcome the first Rural Pre-Medicine cohort to the program. With a class made up of diverse backgrounds that range from recent high school grads to single mothers who have been away from post-secondary for more than a decade, there was a buzz in the air.
Students take most classes together in a cohort model that encourages teamwork. More photos of the class in action at Facebook.
“I have a vision of some of the graduates of this program not only making it into medical school, but also being really grounded and solid people,” said Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital physician Dr. Blair Stanley, chair of the program’s advisory committee. “Not only because of their rural roots, but because of some of the learnings they will have had in this unique program. They will bring that groundedness and can bring that awareness into their clinical setting when they are looking after patients. I think that will be a magical connection that they will have with patients and the work they do.”
A visit to a Friday afternoon chemistry lab is further proof that the cohort model and small classroom environment is already paying dividends. Three months into their education journey at Selkirk College, students work together with a spirit more often found with the cohesiveness of a sports team rather than the individualistic competitive pursuit of entrance into medical school.
“You can see already that the students in this program are going do something and they are going to do something great… It’s already a success,” says Lund. “I’m really proud of these students and very excited about the opportunities for them in the future. Whether they end up choosing medicine or another health field or something else completely different in science, this is where it starts.”