Past Student Comments

"For anyone who wants to tailor their third year experience to their personal interests, this is a no-brainer! Also, it's so nice to have a homebase where the clinic staff and preceptors know your abilities." 

-MetroPAP Student at Phalen

"I think one of the values of MetroPAP is the longitudinal relationship that you get to build with your site, with residents, and with your preceptors. I think that this was the best environment to learn in, as I was truly able to just focus on learning medicine rather than feeling pressure to learn a bunch of different systems, different styles, and different doctors. All of the residents and attendings at Broadway Family Medicine were so incredibly welcoming and open and willing to teach, and I would most certainly recommend it to future students." 

-MetroPAP Student at Broadway

"I felt that participating in a longitudinal rotation allowed me to get to know patients in a way that family physicians do. This strengthened my passion for family medicine. The relationships with staff at Smiley's were so important to me on a personal level. It felt so nice to have people to eat lunch with, talk with before/after my shift, and ask questions of." 

-MetroPAP Student at Smiley's

What are the greatest aspects of the MetroPAP program? Here’s a behind-the-scenes perspective from a former North Minneapolis MetroPAP student.

1. Continuity of patients

Developing a fluency in continuity of care with a patient is challenging in a traditional medical curriculum, but it’s an important muscle to start exercising as a medical student. I followed some patients in my MetroPAP panel for six to seven months, but did not feel as though I developed a therapeutic bond with them until the fourth month.

Developing a skillset for fostering those relationships is an invaluable learning experience. The benefit of continuity was not limited to the outpatient setting; one of the greatest revelations for me was realizing that, as someone who loves hospital medicine, the in- and out-patient settings exist on a spectrum of care, and are constantly speaking with one another.

This becomes especially apparent when working with a patient with high-utilization of healthcare—someone who is in-and-out of the hospital every two weeks—and the goals of care in the clinic and hospital settings start to merge. I learned what a privileged position it is, as a provider, to know what you've tried and haven't tried in prior admissions; to know what your patient’s concerns are, what their social issues are that might reinforce high utilization of care.

It was an unexpected, novel way of thinking about both outpatient and inpatient service—of conceptualizing my role in the overarching spectrum of healthcare.

2. Continuity of educators 

The longest rotation in the traditional medical curriculum is six to eight weeks. Oftentimes, even within those six to eight weeks, two to three preceptors oversee and assess students based on a handful of 10-15 minute windows of patient presentations. In MetroPAP, though, because the faculty/residents are overseeing you, you feel as though they are invested in your specific interests and outlook on medicine. I think extending the timeline of education from six weeks to nine months liberates you to another level of flexibility in your education—it helps you to hone in on what you’d like to accomplish and learn on a given rotation.

The faculty and residents quickly become familiar with a student’s strengths and weaknesses, yet provide a safe venue for them to continue honing strengths and improving upon weaknesses. From that understanding, residents/attendings were more likely to give me autonomy, and in turn, I was given more responsibility.

The bulk of the actual clinical learning comes from doing something yourself. In my experience, MetroPAP allowed for a lot more of these opportunities. From delivering more newborns and performing more circs to leaving clinic to see one of my patients in the hospital and performing a home-visit, I felt like I was given the space and autonomy to be empowered about my role in patient care. MetroPAP played an enormous role in helping me to find and define my “physician voice.”

3. The setting

You will be treated as an intern, given responsibilities similar to that of an intern, invited to clinic/resident events, etc. Beyond the implications this has for building confidence and encouraging self-motivation, it gives students a sense of what residency will be like (not just family medicine residency, but the kind of working relations one develops with fellow co-residents and attendings), and has really guided what I will look for when I apply to residency programs.

4. The community

The North Minneapolis community is special. There is a complex set of social determinants of health at play within the area, and you will find that your public health brain is constantly engaged in clinic, no matter where your site is. Moreover, there are ample opportunities to volunteer in Broadway’s community-based initiatives, partner with their HIV outreach coordinator, and collaborate with other disciplines to broaden your conceptions of health and wellness.

I often view my MetroPAP year as a valuable precursor and supplement to my following year, when I pursued a Master of Public Health degree. These two experiences informed each other.