Ryan Scheltus
Community: Clive, Alberta
Medical school: University of Alberta
A medical student looks forward to one day performing surgeries for rural Albertans who now must travel out of their communities for the procedures.
Ryan Scheltus is in his first year of medicine at the University of Alberta, but he already has a goal to expand his training to offer caesarean sections, appendectomies and gall bladder removals, as well as perform minor surgeries as a rural physician.
“Where I was raised, the nearest hospital had a surgeon who retired, meaning that people needed to travel far distances,” says Scheltus, who was raised in Clive, Alberta, a small community about 15 minutes east of Lacombe.
Scheltus didn’t waste much time after starting medical school to delve further into the world of rural healthcare.
Just a couple of months in, he headed more than four hours northwest of Edmonton to the Municipal District of Smoky River to take part in a Let’s Go Rural! Post-Secondary Event. The RhPAP program connects healthcare students to rural communities for a weekend of interaction with area healthcare providers and residents to experience what it’s like to live and practise in their community.
Scheltus, a former teacher, decided to switch careers and is one of several medical students who were recently selected to receive the annual RhPAP Rural Medical School Award. The award provides a one-time contribution of $5,000 to assist with the student’s tuition, accommodation, living, and/or professional development expenses.
Scheltus knows firsthand the healthcare challenges people often face when they live outside of urban areas.
“I grew up in rural Alberta where family physicians are much more sparse than in the city,” he writes in his award application. “My family doctor was in Red Deer, but retired when I was quite young. My family looked for a new family doctor for years until we ended up with Dr. Matthew Unger.”
Scheltus explains that the Lacombe-based Dr. Unger was influential in his decision to practise medicine.
“He took me under his wing and even agreed to work with me in the pre-medical school shadowing program where he showed me the joys of family medicine and the specific joys of rural medicine.”
Scheltus says he, his wife, and his young daughter are eager to establish roots in a small community.
“I hope to seek learning experiences that will provide me with a better understanding of what resource management means within a rural community,” he says.
Check out the full list of RhPAP Medical School Award winners here.