Eighteen first-year medical students from London's Schulich Medicine & Dentistry are shadowing physicians and visiting patients across Lambton County this week.
Discovery Week, which highlights rural and regional medicine, is back following a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.
There are 14 students at Bluewater Health (10 in Sarnia and four in Petrolia), two at North Lambton Community Health Centre, and two at the Rapids Family Health Team.
Bluewater Health Chief of Staff Dr. Michel Haddad said it's a unique opportunity for students to be embedded in the healthcare environment and see how medicine is practiced in a smaller setting.
"The bigger cities usually focus more on a combination of clinical practice and academia research," said Dr. Haddad. "In community hospitals, we focus more on the delivery of healthcare to patients, clinical practice and also teaching and educating the next generation. The access to various services are different as well. For example, you can't just have brain surgery in Chatham or Sarnia but you can have it in London. Also, you need to learn extra specific skills if you're in a smaller community hospital about what you can treat locally and when you have to send a patient out or transfer back and forth. We're blessed here in Sarnia-Lambton that we have CT scanners, MRI machines and ultrasounds. As you can imagine in smaller centres, they don't even have CT scans or MRIs."
The students will spend time in the emergency departments, in the inpatient units, ambulatory care clinics and operating rooms at Bluewater Health, and also in physicians' individual offices.
Dr. Haddad said many students return to Lambton to practice because of their positive Discovery Week experiences.
A total of 33 communities are taking part in Discovery Week, extending from Windsor up to Wiarton.
