Sharon Hospital: Rural residency program aims to ease primary care shortage

SHARON — A new program bringing medical residents to Sharon Hospital aims to show young doctors what working in rural healthcare is like — and hopefully convince them to stay.

“There is such a need for primary care doctors here,” said Dr. Kristin Newton, a family medicine practitioner at Sharon Hospital who coordinates Sharon’s participation in the program, which is based out of New Milford Hospital’s Family Medicine Center.

The Northwest Corner is in the midst of a decades-long primary care shortage, and Newton said that family medicine doctors bring holistic “cradle to grave” care to underserved communities.

Sharon Hospital is in its second month hosting family medicine residents as they rotate between departments at different hospitals throughout their three-year residency. A residency is essentially an intensive training period for medical school graduates — “their transition period where they learn a specialty,” as Newton put it.

Residents spend one month working directly with Newton and other attending physicians in internal care in Sharon between other core rotations back in New Milford or at other Connecticut hospitals, such as Danbury. Newton said that bringing early career physicians to the Northwest Corner offers a different perspective than programs at the bigger, more urban hospitals in the state, and also may encourage young doctors to put down roots in the area.

“Having residency programs in locations where people want to settle and raise their families and practice long term, I think, is so important,” she said.

Tuesday, Feb. 10 was Michael Roman’s first day in Sharon. During a pause in his orientation, Roman, a first-year resident also known as an “intern,” said he was drawn to family medicine for its interpersonal nature.

“I like the relationships you build with patients — you get much closer to them,” Roman said. “You see them much more frequently.

“You’re just kind of more known in the rural setting as opposed to an urban setting.”

Family medicine practitioners also need to be nimble, with a “broad scope of practice” he said — an important asset for a primary care doctor in a rural setting where specialized consultants may not be immediately available.

“You really don’t know what’s coming through the door at your office. It’s different every day.”

The Sharon rotation, where there are far fewer residents and consultants on hand than at larger hospitals like Danbury, is less “compartmentalized” than rotations at those facilities, Newton said. The residents are exposed to a much wider breadth of care, which is a “great experience learning wise.”

Most residency programs are urban based, she explained. Roman said that was a motivation for him to seek the rural track at New Milford, which offers the educational breadth he was seeking. Transitioning from a background in rural care to urban is relatively simple, he said, but it’s much harder to go the other way.

Roman, who was born in Egypt, raised in Winnipeg, Canada, and went to medical school in Dublin, Ireland, has only been in the area since July when he started his residency. He isn’t positive yet that he’ll remain in the area when it’s done, “but it’s never something I’d rule out.”

Newton said that she’s optimistic that the program will appeal to residents who are motivated by close patient-physician relationship and a broad spectrum of care.

“I’m hoping that some of the residents will love it here and want to stay, because we really, really need primary care doctors!”