We had an interview trip over August 11th to the
25th. It was quite a
trip. The good news about being a
family medicine doctor interested in practicing rural medicine is that I could
move anywhere in the country for work. After looking for more than 2 years at different
places (calling CEOs, making lists, calling government offices) I realized that
there were simply too many to look at all of them. We happened to get a postcard in the mail from a recruiter
(I get tons of these and throw them all away). Melinda happens to look at it and it’s a lady who
specialized in rural recruitment.
We talked on the phone and talked about what type of places I want and
don’t want and started sifting through the choices from there. We got about 10 quality options, 6 of
which didn’t really work, and we were down to four.
- 1. Bandon, OR
- Coquille, OR (We also got a interview a week prior to our visit for a town 15 miles away because a doctor was looking to retire.)
- 2. Prineville, OR
- 3. Orofino, ID
- 4. Anaconda, MT
I’ll give you the brief highlights tour of each
location.
Bandon, OR – This is a town of about 3000 right on the ocean
(sometimes called Bandon by the sea).
It’s a tourist and retirement community, so it has a lot of old people
around, but a quaint downtown.
It’s cool (average high in summer is 70, but average high in winter is
60). It rains a lot and is very
green. Overall it’s very
pretty. The doctors that I would
work with are very nice people, but don’t really have the same goals in life or
medicine as me. They do a lot of
cosmetic stuff (for wrinkles, etc).
they are also interested in hCG-mediated weight loss. My approach is more lifestyle
intervention stuff (changing diets, exercise, weight loss, etc). I think it would be isolating medically
to be the only one there who thinks like that. It would also be a clinic-only practice (no ER, no call, no
hospital work, no OB). This would
be very difficult to get my skills back after only being in clinic for a couple
of years.
Coquille, OR – (this one came up about a week before we left on our visit) It’s also a very pretty location. It’s about 10 miles inland from the
ocean but that makes a huge difference in temperature (about a 10 degree
difference). Beautiful valley
ringed with mountains and pine trees with a river running through it. It does have a surgeon who is big into
prevention through diet/exercise/etc., which is exciting for me, but they might
require me to work ER shifts on the weekends. That’s kind of a deal-breaker for me. I’ve done that in residency, I’m done
with that. This one is still in
the running. We might go back for
a second-look interview at some point.
Prineville, OR – After spending 4 days on the Oregon coast,
and a drive through the beautiful Cascade Mountains, to come out the other side
into the high desert was somewhat of a let-down. As we drove into town we looked at each other and said,
“Let’s keep an open mind about this place.” They really impressed us with their community and the people
we met there. It’s a small town,
but everyone we met really seems to have bought into the community. They aren’t pretentious and are very
down to earth. They know what they
can do at the hospital, and they try to do it very well. We loved how they included other people
from the community in the tour for Melinda and for the dinner the night of my
interview. The other places had
varying amounts of including stuff for Melinda, but Prineville did a great job
of selling the community to us.
Orofino, ID – This is about an hour east of
Lewiston/Clarkston. It’s right in
the mountains, and a very pretty drive up through the valley alongside the
river to the town. We got into
town at around 2PM and spend the rest of the day on our own around town. We decompressed a little bit and then
took a walk to the “downtown”.
In a town of 3000 it isn’t much of a downtown. Most of our walk was through the older part of town, and
since this was/is a lumber town the houses are all small and on top of each
other. Not the best
impression. The next day however,
we got a tour of the surrounding areas of town. Wow. You don’t
have to go that far up on the mountain/hillside to find some nice houses with
amazing views. That was a
relief. One interesting thing
about Orofino that we liked was that people that we talked with did a lot of
outdoor stuff. They didn’t just
talk about doing stuff, they did it.
One member that Melinda met with at lunch says they are at the river all
the time and out in nature 6 days a week.
One of the doctors was bicycling to Moscow, ID (60mi) the following day,
and one of the other doctors just emailed me letting me know he would be out of
town for 10 days on a backpacking trip to the Sierras. It was pretty cool to see. One of our concerns about this place is
that it is pretty remote. The nearest big town is Lewiston, Idaho with a population of
30K, with a Costco and such stores, but it’s an hour away.
Anaconda, MT – This was our last interview. Thankfully we only had 4 interviews
this trip, it was grueling driving every other day and interviewing all the
other days. Anyway, we drove
through town and the lower part of town is an old mining town (actually a
smelter town where they refined the ore brought in) and looked like Appalachia
in West Virginia; one house build almost on top of another. Overall it was rough looking and a
little disheartening. Thankfully
we went to church and saw that there was another part of town with much more
normal houses. Church had a lot of
older people, but 3 younger families.
Unfortunately all three families were visiting their grandparents in the
ward. It’s a pretty aged
town. I liked the people in the
clinic and the hospital, but we heard a lot of the same story from different people. Summing it up was from a Nurse Practitioner
that I spoke with. He has lived in
the town for 35 years and raised his kids there. He posed the question to himself, “would I do it again if I
knew what I know now?” [long pause] hesitatingly, “I suppose I would”. He doesn’t like the town and the school
district, but loves the outdoors and that’s what keeps him there. Not a resounding endorsement of the
town. I think it’s pretty much off
the list for us, but they almost have a guaranteed loan forgiveness. Still not enough of an incentive to
move there.
As of right now it goes as follows for where we're going to live
1 Orofino Idaho and Coquille Oregon
2 Prineville, Oregon
3 Bandon, Oregon
4 Anaconda, Montana
Further updates as they are coming.
1 comment:
Can't wait till you decide!!!
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