ORANGEVILLE, IL — When her father fell ill a few years ago, his interactions with doctors stood out for Rock Falls native Heather Moser.
“Throughout my interactions with him, it’s been eye-opening from several different perspectives, from emergency room visits to neurology visits, and everything that went with him being sick really struck me. “It opened my eyes,” she said.
“I want to be part of it. I want to be part of helping people, especially those in rural areas where access to healthcare is not always optimal.”
Moser is pursuing her dream of practicing medicine in a rural community. The nurse and current medical student is a participant in the Rural Illinois Medical Student Assistance Program who is also enrolled in the Rural Medical Education Program at the University of Illinois School of Medicine at Rockford.
Also, to learn more about the medical needs of rural residents, especially farmers, Moser joined 26 RMED students on a recent farm tour sponsored by RIMSAP.
Tractor overturn. Limbs sandwiched between ogre. Grain bin accident. All involve injuries that can be treated by medical professionals in rural areas.
Led by Doug and Dan Scheider, owners of Freeport’s Scheidairy Farms, and Mark Baker, an Orangeville farmer and founder of Stateline Farm Rescue, this tour explores farm injuries and illnesses and their consequences. Emphasis on treatment methods.
Equally important, the students were advised on how to talk to farmers.
“Generally, farmers don’t want to come see you guys,” Doug Scheider told the group. “You have to talk about other things and build trust.”
Farmers can spend many hours a day at the combine, resulting in stress on their backs and other problems. Farmers can also struggle with eating healthy, breathing chemicals and mental health issues.
They may also have hearing impairments due to being near loud equipment.
“So, when you’re talking to someone, they might not be able to hear you in case they don’t think you’re getting through,” Scheider said.
Scheider is also a member of RMED’s Adoption and Retention Committee. He and his son Dan took medical students around their dairy farm (they’ve been on tour for his 16 years). Dunn said he fears there will be no medical options in rural areas due to a shortage of professionals.
They thanked the students for their interest in rural medicine, and Dan added that his son was born by an RMED graduate.
The second stop on the tour was Baker’s farm, where the students participated in a hands-on rescue that simulated grain entrapment led by Baker.
Baker, a firefighter and emergency medical technician, said his experience made farming accidents look more “terrifying” today.
“I think a lot of it is because they are trying to do more with less,” he said. “The equipment we use is getting faster and faster. It doesn’t move.”
Students used a simulator in Baker’s garage to experience being both rescuers and victims during grain pinching.
“We want to make them aware of the trauma and how violent some of these injuries can be,” Baker said. When will they be ready?”
Cheyenne Carr, a first-year medical student in El Paso, said the simulation was an incredible experience from learning about the different types of injuries that can occur to rescuers.
Carr and Moser are members of RIMSAP, sponsored by the Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois State Medical Society.
RIMSAP assists medical school applicants to overcome the financial need or borderline academic barriers to medical education through recommendations for medical school admission and/or financing.
In return, students must agree to practice medicine for a number of years in an approved rural area of Illinois, depending on the circumstances.
RMED’s Associate Director of Recruitment/Public Relations, Marc Moorer, has been coordinating Farm Tours No Harm for 16 years.
He noted that RMED, which includes rural health education in addition to the medical school curriculum, has seen an increase in student numbers over the past decade.
“But we are the only program in the country that actively goes out and recruits students with rural backgrounds to go to medical school,” Meurer said.
The largest rural medical education program in the country, the program enrolls 104 students from 11 states.
“So this is an opportunity for our future rural doctors to go out on the farm and experience firsthand the lifestyle, culture and working conditions of agriculture in a modern agricultural environment,” he said.
This article was distributed through a joint project between the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Press Association.
