Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

The stories of rural physicians

Health eCareers
Physician
November 17, 2018
256 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share

This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com.

When George W. “Billy” Campbell, MD, walks down the street, he never knows who — or what — he’s going to encounter. Anything can happen when you’re the doctor at Foothills Family Medicine of Westminster, South Carolina, a small town with a population of only 2,500.

“I’ve had someone pull her dress up and say, ‘Look at my leg,'” Campbell says. “Then she said, ‘That green pill didn’t work, and it’s been messing with me.'” I said, ‘Please call the office and come see me.'”

That sage advice seems to be fairly common among physicians who practice where everybody knows their name.

Campbell says he doesn’t do much grocery shopping for the same reason. He doesn’t want a shopping outing for tonight’s dinner to turn into an office visit — out of the office.

He’s been in town since 1984 and has become wise in the ways of practicing medicine there, where he was also born. He obtained degrees at Emory University and The Medical University of South Carolina.

“People used to show up at the house,” he says. “One of my friends told me, ‘Be sure you have 10- or 5-dollar bills [to make change when they pay you]. I said, ‘I’m afraid of Uncle Sam,'” referring to the risks incurred with cash transactions and tax reporting.

“Then when I built a privacy fence around the property, I heard that people were asking, ‘What’s Billy doing up there that he don’t want anybody to see?'”

Campbell says he’s taken care of his first-grade teacher and the person who gave him his first haircut. “You get used to violating their personal space. I had to give my algebra teacher a Pap smear. You get over the intimacy issue with people you’ve known all your life.”

Making the most of it

Campbell’s good at hospital medicine, he says, and he still goes to the hospital every day, especially to see his older patients, but he’s no longer tied to being there so much that he couldn’t have a life. He also works remotely and analyzes X-rays and other diagnostics in his office to get up to speed before he sets out.

“Some of the older ladies cry when I come in,” he says. “My patients are glad to see me, still, and with my schedule now, I can sleep at night.”

A few of his patients are other doctors, and he recently spent quality time with one who was dying. “Life is short, and I could be dead any time,” he reflects.

With that in mind, with wife Kimberley, he loves to walk in the woods in the land of his ancestors. They drive to nearby Greenville, South Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina or Athens, Georgia to fulfill their foodie cravings. The Campbells also founded the Ramsay Creek Preserve, the first conservation burial ground in the United States, and maybe, the world.

Time for “a lot of living”

Adriane Westmoreland, DO, arrived in July 2018 to Cloquet, Minnesota (pop. 12,000) and is part of a brand new family practice clinic, the Cloquet Memorial Hospital Family Clinic, affiliated with the local hospital.

She’s not new to smaller-town practices, having left Estherville, Iowa (pop. 6,000). “I took care of my kids’ teachers and delivered my nurse practitioner’s baby,” she says. It was a full schedule as a solo practitioner and she moved to find some balance.

“I was doing a whole lot of work and not a lot of living,” says Westmoreland. She had a bed in her office and sometimes she saw her children only once a week.

It is totally realistic for rural physicians to experience burnout like their counterparts at major, urban, academic medical centers, she says. “It’s not because of patients, but because of insurance, paperwork and fighting for patient’s rights. This is a good job. We like to work hard, but people won’t let us do our job anymore.”

In Minnesota, she takes her kids to school every morning. “The elementary school is close to the hospital,” she says. “Sometimes the bus for my middle school child drops right off at the hospital.”

‘”Anything but …”

Westmoreland used to think she wanted to do anything but family medicine. “I wanted to do ‘exciting’ things,” she says. Then she worked alongside a family practice doctor in West Virginia. “She was the best diagnostician I ever met, just amazing, and she changed my mind.”

She describes family medicine in her locale as “taking care of mama and baby. And then the mother says, ‘My husband is complaining about his head hurting.'”

Echoing the practice habits of Campbell, she tells the patient, “Have him make an appointment.”

Westmoreland says she’s gotten used to the up-closeness of it all. “When I see you on the street, I see who you are then, and not you as a patient.” She, too, has experienced the clothing pull-up scenario, with a patient lifting up a shirt to show her a rash.

“Make an appointment,” she said.

She finds that what she gives out sometimes comes back in unexpected ways, though. “A friend told me recently, ‘Your child was out on the street, instead of on the playground.’ People take care of me, too.”

A conscious choice

Sometimes it just runs in the family. Lucia Williams, MD, of Jacksonville, Texas (pop. 16,000) got used to what her future would look like as an OB-GYN because her father was a physician.

“People would show up at our house back then,” she says. “Or they would drive by the house [to see if anyone was home] and then they’d call him. And it’s true that everybody knows everybody in Jacksonville.”

Going to the grocery store or Walmart can be an interesting experience, she says. Still, Williams, who is one of two Ob-Gyn specialists in her area, says living where she does was a “conscious choice.”

She came most recently from Houston, and having grown up in a rural community, she thought, “Let’s go back out to the country for a while.”

On her own

“You have to be pretty independent and that’s one of the things that intimidates a lot of new graduates,” says Williams, who works in a rural health clinic. “There aren’t 15 people you can call to consult with and you have to be able to figure things out for yourself.”

That may include deciding to call a helicopter to take an emergency patient to Dallas, a 1.5-hour drive.

A newer doctor can feel like they’re come out of a “high-tech ivory tower” and find a stark contrast in rural medicine, she says. “I sometimes would think, ‘I know how to do that but should I do that here?’ I don’t have an ICU or a big, ancillary staff with a lot of backup. There are things I know how to do and am trained to do, but I don’t think are always appropriate in a rural scenario.”

She knows she’s filling a void, however, and it’s a big one. “There are a million people in Texas with no access to high-speed internet,” she says. That means they can’t even read about medical conditions on reputable sites like WebMD to learn some accurate health care basics. That makes in-person medical care even more relevant and necessary.

Whatever the downsides of rural health, she’s unwavering.

“I love what I do. I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Williams says.

Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Prev

MKSAP: 42-year-old man with thrombophilia

November 17, 2018 Kevin 0
…
Next

How technology removes the pain point from diabetes management

November 17, 2018 Kevin 3
…

Tagged as: Practice Management, Primary Care

Post navigation

< Previous Post
MKSAP: 42-year-old man with thrombophilia
Next Post >
How technology removes the pain point from diabetes management

More by Health eCareers

  • What are the top non-clinical physician jobs and salaries?

    Health eCareers
  • Regret medical school? Here are 3 things you can do.

    Health eCareers
  • Best jobs for retired physicians: What are the options?

    Health eCareers

Related Posts

  • Turn physicians into powerful health care influencers

    Kevin Pho, MD
  • The rural health care crisis and medical education

    Nick Richwagen, Evan Chen, and Jacob Riegler
  • Physicians and patients must work together to improve health care

    Michele Luckenbaugh
  • Are patients using social media to attack physicians?

    David R. Stukus, MD
  • Physicians have become devalued in modern health care

    Anonymous
  • The risk physicians take when going on social media

    Anonymous

More in Physician

  • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

    Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD
  • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

    Edward T. Creagan, MD
  • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

    Anonymous
  • When an MBA degree meets medicine: an eye-opening experience

    Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA
  • The hidden gems of health care: Unlocking the potential of narrative medicine

    Dr. Najat Fadlallah
  • The dark side of immortality: What if we could live forever?

    Ketan Desai, MD, PhD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Healing the damaged nurse-physician dynamic

      Angel J. Mena, MD and Ali Morin, MSN, RN | Policy
    • The struggle to fill emergency medicine residency spots: Exploring the factors behind the unfilled match

      Katrina Gipson, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Breaking the stigma: Addressing the struggles of physicians

      Jean Antonucci, MD | Physician
    • Beyond the disease: the power of empathy in health care

      Nana Dadzie Ghansah, MD | Physician
    • Deaths of despair: an urgent call for a collective response to the crisis in U.S. life expectancy

      Mohammed Umer Waris, MD | Policy
  • Past 6 Months

    • The hidden dangers of the Nebraska Heartbeat Act

      Meghan Sheehan, MD | Policy
    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Nobody wants this job. Should physicians stick around?

      Katie Klingberg, MD | Physician
    • The fight for reproductive health: Why medication abortion matters

      Catherine Hennessey, MD | Physician
    • The vital importance of climate change education in medical schools

      Helen Kim, MD | Policy
    • Resetting the doctor-patient relationship: Navigating the challenges of modern primary care

      Jeffrey H. Millstein, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Breaking free from gaslighting [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The pros and cons of using ChatGPT for your health care needs

      Liudmila Schafer, MD | Tech
    • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

      Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD | Physician
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

      Anonymous | Physician
    • A new era of collaboration between AI and health care professionals

      Harvey Castro, MD, MBA | Tech

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 1 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

CME Spotlights

From MedPage Today

Latest News

  • How Did Pulse Oximeters Perform in Black Kids?
  • Coffee and Heart Function; Ionizing Radiation and CVD
  • Health Inequity Should Be Labeled as a 'Never Event'
  • Healing the Damaged Nurse-Physician Dynamic
  • Doc Moms, Mind the Gap -- $3M Earning Difference by Sex

Meeting Coverage

  • Switch to IL-23 Blocker Yields Deep Responses in Recalcitrant Plaque Psoriasis
  • Biomarkers of Response With Enfortumab Vedotin in Advanced Urothelial Cancer
  • At-Home Topical Therapy for Molluscum Contagiosum Gets High Marks
  • Outlook for Itchy Prurigo Nodularis Continues to Improve With IL-31 Antagonist
  • AAAAI President Shares Highlights From the 2023 Meeting
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Healing the damaged nurse-physician dynamic

      Angel J. Mena, MD and Ali Morin, MSN, RN | Policy
    • The struggle to fill emergency medicine residency spots: Exploring the factors behind the unfilled match

      Katrina Gipson, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Breaking the stigma: Addressing the struggles of physicians

      Jean Antonucci, MD | Physician
    • Beyond the disease: the power of empathy in health care

      Nana Dadzie Ghansah, MD | Physician
    • Deaths of despair: an urgent call for a collective response to the crisis in U.S. life expectancy

      Mohammed Umer Waris, MD | Policy
  • Past 6 Months

    • The hidden dangers of the Nebraska Heartbeat Act

      Meghan Sheehan, MD | Policy
    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Nobody wants this job. Should physicians stick around?

      Katie Klingberg, MD | Physician
    • The fight for reproductive health: Why medication abortion matters

      Catherine Hennessey, MD | Physician
    • The vital importance of climate change education in medical schools

      Helen Kim, MD | Policy
    • Resetting the doctor-patient relationship: Navigating the challenges of modern primary care

      Jeffrey H. Millstein, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Breaking free from gaslighting [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The pros and cons of using ChatGPT for your health care needs

      Liudmila Schafer, MD | Tech
    • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

      Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD | Physician
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

      Anonymous | Physician
    • A new era of collaboration between AI and health care professionals

      Harvey Castro, MD, MBA | Tech

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today iMedicalApps
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

The stories of rural physicians
1 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...