Room with a view a perk for rural medical learners

Their primary goal may be to study medicine, but medical students also learn a lesson on rural life when they stay at a Vermilion couple’s home. 

 At Darla Yonkman and Mike Fritz’s walkout home overlooking the Vermilion River, medical learners can catch the Northern Lights dancing across the night sky, deer grazing in the adjoining forest, and hear songbirds singing. 

 The couple have rented out their walkout suite to medical learners for two years through RhPAP Accommodations. Having students live with them isn’t new for the couple, as they previously opened their doors to international students, college students, and instructors from the community’s Lakeland College. 

 RhPAP helps medical learners find furnished accommodations while they do their medical training in rural Alberta and has more than 154 leased accommodations across the province in over 52 rural communities. 

 “I believe 100 per cent this is a great program,” says Yonkman, who is also a school trustee in the community. 

 “Most of the students I’ve had have never been to a rural place, not even to stay. They were born in the city and that’s where they stayed so not only do they learn the medical differences, but they also learn how it is to live here, how kind the people are, and how you eventually know everybody that’s coming to see you.” 

 Yonkman says she works hard to make the students feel at home and share the benefits of rural life and work. She hopes one day a previous medical student may accept a healthcare position in her community, located about two hours east of Edmonton, and call Vermilion home. 

 “Your experience, firsthand seeing it, is what’s going to bring you back, not someone telling you about it,” she explains. 

 A self-professed community builder, Yonkman knows it’s important to make people feel welcome when they come to the town of about 5,000 people including the students from Lakeland College. She is also careful not to overstep with those who are keen to stick to their own space in the walkout basement suite that they renovated for medical students. 

 Rafael Sanguinetti stayed in the suite for four weeks while he completed his rural family medicine rotation with the University of Calgary. It was his first visit to Vermilion. 

 “Having accommodation provided is reassuring, in a sense, that I don’t have to take time to look for a place and figure out all the logistics behind it,” says Sanguinetti. 

 “It’s also nice to not have to pay out of pocket for accommodations. I just had to get groceries and set myself up that way.” 

 He appreciated the couple’s support throughout his stay, helping him with the location of the hospital and key community attractions, while also being flexible and understanding of his early morning and late-night shifts. Sanguinetti says he was so busy during his rotation in January and February that he missed seeing the Northern Lights. 

 But the Calgary resident was impressed with his landlords, his preceptor, healthcare staff, patients he encountered, and the lack of traffic in the rural community. 

 “It was such a great time that I had over there…. Everyone seemed really happy to see a medical student working in Vermilion. 

“It was cool to have kind of that appreciation by the staff and the patients. I had a fantastic time.”