Maine AHEC Network

The rural health immersion is offered as an opportunity for health professions students to get a glimpse of what its like to live and work in rural Maine. All Maine AHEC Scholars complete a rural health immersion in their first year of the Maine AHEC Scholar Honors Distinction Program. During each RHI students meet with community and clinical stakeholders to discuss the healthcare landscape in the region that they are visiting. As students visit hospitals, community health centers, private practices, community services, they converse with directors and CEOs as the community "rolls out the red carpet" for them to give them a real Maine welcome. We can't say enough how thankful we are of all of our community and clinical partners who take the time out of their busy schedules to meet with our students!

During the third day of the western Maine rural health immersion to Franklin County the group of interprofessional AHEC Scholars visited Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, ME. Chelsea Kimball, first year occupational therapy student at UNE's Westbrook College of Health Professions, shares her experience after meeting with members of the hospital staff.

"Coming to rural Maine and exploring what this area has to offer I thought I was going to find all the reasons why I couldn't live up here this far from "reality", but all I found was all the reasons why I could, more surprisingly it was more real than I'd ever expected.

So to begin describing my revelation we visited the local county hospital, Franklin Memorial Hospital to have lunch with a panel of health professionals to discuss healthcare delivery in rural Maine. Normally, hospitals make me uneasy and overwhelmed but here was a completely different experience. From the waiting room to the emergency department and ICU, the hallways were calm (which isn't the case all the time) and filled with welcoming, cheerful staff. The general atmosphere was simply at ease and not filled with the feelings I generally get from a place where people go when they're hurting. After the quick tour since the hospital is uniquely much smaller than any urban hospital I've been to before, we had lunch with the chief nursing officer (CNO), two nurses, and the director of rehab services. Many topics were discussed but a lot stuck out to me. A quote Tania, our AHEC Coordinator, mentioned that resonated with me was that in rural Maine health care systems "we have the same issues and problems that anywhere else faces, we just have less money."

To dig deeper into that we discussed some unique challenges that this region faces. One of the main issues here explained that it is extremely hard to find full time staff that aren't traveling nurses who aren't really their employees; Franklin Memorial has many "travelers". Additionally, the CNO mentioned that human resources in general struggles with finding highly qualified staff that live close enough to work here. This really stood out to me because Maine as a state has trouble retaining health care professionals and it's even harder in rural Maine because of the geographical location. This is something I never thought about when thinking about health care up in Northern Maine. My assumption was that, even though here wouldn't have many staff, they probably would have less patients and less intense cases. But my assumption was way off and a common misconception when people think of rural Maine care. Hospitals here do have many patients, sometimes having to treat them in the hallways when their 10 beds in the emergency department are filled. Another big issue is the lack of transportation in getting patients to their appointments and needed outpatient clinics. In their regional area, they have little to no public transportation, only one known person who drives Uber, and no longer any taxi companies. To complicate matters further, Franklin county has a vast geographic area which makes getting to health care much harder if you don't have a car or can't drive. The ease of transportation is something we take advantage of on a day-to-day basis so we don't think about the importance of it when it comes to taking care of ourselves. All of these things I've never thought of when thinking of the differences I could have found in rural vs urban communities.

In some ways I thought that rural communities would have less resources but in reality they have plenty of amazing resources but they simply don't have the people staying to run and work for those resources. All and all, if more people knew what this area has to offer and that it is not much different than urban life plus has their own unique qualities that can be appealing, then this small difference and barrier wouldn't leave these health communities in need. Through this experience, I want to carry the idea that I can't assume what small regions might not have without experiencing the area and community first. This trip opened my eyes and quieted my biases of what rural Maine would be like in the professional world. I want to be more open minded and adventurous in trying new things and not be afraid to work in places I'm hesitant about. I think searching for your values in the community you want to serve is the biggest takeaway from this trip and everything about this 'small town' matched in many ways with my values of community, work environment, and lifestyle. It's important to serve populations in need and rural Maine needs us to take the leap."

National AHEC Organization Franklin Community Health Network University of New England - Occupational Therapy Westbrook College of Health Professions