press release
JONESBORO, AR – Starting this week, third-year medical students at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University will ride with Emerson Ambulance Service as part of the student doctors’ emergency medicine rotation thanks to an agreement the institute reached with the Jonesboro-based ambulance company earlier this month.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Emerson to give our student doctors a unique experience during their emergency medicine rotation,” said Amanda Deel, D.O., NYITCOM associate dean of academic affairs. “This inter-professional training will expand the students’ understanding of the realities that patients and emergency medical staff experience before the patient actually arrives in the emergency room. Our medical students will get to see and experience how paramedics and EMTs care for patients from the moment they contact them.”
During their four-week emergency medicine rotation, NYITCOM students will spend two days on an Emerson ambulance working with their crews and learning more about the types of situations first responders encounter.
“There are a lot of dynamics involved in treating a patient outside of a controlled environment, and it’s extremely valuable to us when physicians understand many of the challenges paramedics and EMTs face,” Emerson Ambulance President Toby Emerson said. “It’s really helpful when a doctor understands what was really going on when we reached a patient. We hope this experience helps these future physicians learn more about that process and that it helps build trust between them and paramedics and EMTs throughout their career.”
In medical school, student doctors spend their first two years in classroom and laboratory settings. In their third year, they begin performing clinical rotations – or clerkships – where they see patients alongside a licensed physician to receive hands-on training in a hospital or clinic. Their third-year rotations expose them to each of the general specialties. They spend four weeks working in obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, family medicine and emergency medicine, while their general surgery and internal medicine rotations last eight weeks.
NYITCOM at A-State has partnered with more than 150 hospitals, clinics and physicians in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and Mississippi to train student doctors during their third and fourth years, and the college is thrilled to add Emerson to that group.
“This experience is going to be incredibly valuable to our student doctors,” said Ben Woodruff, NYITCOM’s director of clinical education. “We’re so grateful to Emerson and their staff for providing this opportunity to our medical students.”
About NYITCOM at Arkansas State University:
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University is dedicated to improving access to health care for the underserved and rural populations in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta Region. Arkansas ranks 48th in overall population health status due to low health indicators including obesity and number of adults who smoke. The state also ranks 46th in the number of active physicians per capita and 39th in the number of primary care physicians. NYITCOM at A-State was established in 2016 with the mission of meeting the need for more physicians in this medically underserved area.
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