Pub. 3 2019 Issue 1

C oming from a small town of Silverton, Oregon with a population of only about 10,000 people, the biggest adjustment for graduating medical student Jordan Albrich was the size of Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. “Even the sounds at night — when you try to go to sleep back home it’s dead quiet except for the sound of frogs or insects. For the longest time it was really hard for me to get to sleep because I could hear noise outside. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s completely true!” Before coming to Utah, Jordan graduated from the University of Portland, a smaller University located on the northwestern edge of the city, with his undergraduate degree in biology. Another difficult adjustment coming to Utah was leaving behind friends and family, most of whom live in Oregon. One of only 12 students in his class that are from out-of-state, Jordan relied on his classmates for support to learn his way around Utah. It seems the group appreciated his friendship, leadership, and support as well, as they recently awarded him the F. Marian Bishop Award of Excellence. This honor, voted on by a student’s peers, recognizes a senior who exemplifies the core elements in family medicine and who has been involved to further family medicine at the med-school level. Jordan knew before he came to medical school that he wanted to pursue family medicine. He uses the example of a retired family doctor in Silverton, who is 92 and is well-known in the community, as someone who inspired his career pursuits. The idea of being a family doctor in a small community like the one he grew up in is incredibly appealing to Jordan. After his rotation in obstetrics and gynecology, he considered that as a career, especially since his mother is a labor and delivery nurse and she loved the idea of the two of them working side-by- side. However, as Jordan continued through the remainder of his rotations, he realized he had a hard time shutting the door on other specialties and knew that family medicine is the route that allows doctors to do a “little bit of everything.” During his rotations, Jordan had the opportunity to see a pregnant mother for her prenatal visits for several weeks and got very close to the family. And by fortunate coincidence, he was able to be there when she delivered her baby and was even able to participate in the delivery. “Listening to [the baby’s] heart the last couple of weeks and then here they are! Bringing them into the world was the craziest, coolest experience.” When asked about reasons students might not choose to pursue family medicine, Jordan said, “A lot of students were very interested in family medicine and could have seen themselves going into the specialty and they loved it when they were on the rotation ... but I also think sometimes they sacrifice what they want to do because of financial reasons.” Jordan had those same concerns and spoke with his mother about them. Her response, according to Jordan: “You have to think long term because you’re going to be doing this for the rest of your life. Would you be willing to make the sacrifice for status or pay to do something you didn’t enjoy — to not be the best, happiest version of yourself?” Jordan was not willing to make that decision. “So I stuck with my gut feeling, which was confirmed coming out of my family medicine rotation that I really wanted to do this.” Jordan’s next step in his family medicine journey is residency in Vancouver, Washington at Southwest Washington Medical Center. When asked if he ever sees himself returning to Utah, he talks about the geographical wonders that he didn’t have time to see while in school, such as Capitol Reef or Canyonlands. Whether Jordan returns just to visit Utah or practice medicine here, or starts his practice in his hometown of Silverton, Oregon, this bright, passionate young doctor will make a tremendous difference in any community he serves. Melissa V. See, MD, MPA Student Spotligh t Jordan Albrich, MD By Barbara Muñoz 21 |