The innovative Undergraduate Rural Medicine Education and Development (URMED) program created four years ago in Storm Lake through a partnership between Buena Vista Regional Medical Center (BVRMC) and Buena Vista University (BVU) has reached another milestone.

Beginning this month, Lakes Regional Healthcare at Spirit Lake will join the network of hospitals participating in URMED, which also includes BVRMC, Humboldt Community Hospital, Loring Hospital in Sac City and Pocahontas Community Hospital. The increase in hospital participation also created an additional internship position in the program.

BVRMC provides experiential learning opportunities throughout the academic year for BVU students pursuing careers in medicine and other health care professions, says Dr. Richard Lampe, professor of biology who helped develop the URMED partnership. Lampe is also current chair of the BVRMC Board of Trustees.

The capstone of the URMED program is an intensive January internship for selected BVU pre-med students who have an interest in practicing rural medicine. Students compete for the January internship slots, which include $3,000 stipends to help defray the costs of applying to medical school.

The URMED program was designed as one possible solution to the impending national shortage of physicians and other health care practitioners in rural communities. URMED has attracted interest from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine as well as a national program that seeks to interest young people in health care careers, notes Lampe.

While the URMED alumni have no obligation to return to the communities where they interned, BVU science faculty, and officials at BVRMC and the other participating hospitals stay in regular contact and build ongoing relationships with them. “We have already seen interest in several medical students in coming back to Storm Lake to practice,” notes Lampe. The URMED program is also attracting new students interested in health care careers to BVU, he notes.

Students selected for the 2012 URMED January internships are:

• Cammy Matters, a junior biology major from Humboldt
• Whitney Nelson, a junior biology and history double major from Audubon
• Alex Davis, a junior biology major from Webster City
• Sabrina Martinez, a non-traditional student from Storm Lake, who is completing her pre-med course requirements at BVU. A 2008 Columbia University graduate in political science, she is a former admissions representative and assistant director of admissions at BVU.

Matters, Nelson and Davis will each intern at BVRMC for two weeks and then one week at the hospitals in Humboldt, Sac City, or Pocahontas. Martinez will spend all three weeks of her internship at Lakes Regional Healthcare at Spirit Lake.

During their internships, the students will work alongside physicians and other health care practitioners to learn what it is like to interact with patients in hospital, surgery, emergency room and clinical settings. They can also attend lectures and continuing education programs for medical staff.

The participating hospitals and BVU, through donor support, provide the financial resources for the stipends. “This year we had nine very fine URMED applicants but could only fund the four internships,” notes Lampe. “If we had additional financial support and participation from other area hospitals we could grow the program to accommodate the interest that our BVU students are showing in rural medical careers.”

So far, six BVU graduates and two current students have completed URMED January internships. Two are now enrolled in medical schools and others are working in related fields and plan to reapply to med schools, or are in graduate programs.

Two 2009 BVU graduates, Kyle Glienke of Aurelia and James Alstott of Laurens, also completed internships at BVRMC that became the model for the URMED program, says Lampe. They are third-year medical students at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and were on campus in September to talk with URMED students about their experiences in medical school.