Archive

Perspectives in Primary Care features writing from practitioners, activists, and community members representing organizations, practices, and institutions across the United States and around the world.

Advocacy

A Teaching Hospital Partnership with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe

Beautiful Rosebud, South Dakota, is the home of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, or the Sicangu Oyate. In 2012, the Sicangu Oyate was one of the first communities to ask teaching hospitals to send physicians to work in the local Indian Health Service (IHS) facility, nearly 70 years after physicians from teaching hospitals started working with the Veterans Health Administration. The

Exploring Work That Scratches the Soul: Reflection on a Rural Health Independent Study

When my fellow Harvard Medical School classmates asked “what I was up to,” I called it my Rural Family Medicine Adventure Month. More formally, it was my extreme privilege and pleasure to learn Family Medicine across northern Maine and western Massachusetts as part of an independent study in rural primary care in June 2021. My travels brought me to the Jackman Community Health Center, the Northern Maine Medical Center, the Barre Family Health Center, the Behavioral Health Network Methadone Clinic, and the Community Health Center of Franklin County. I explored the ...

Making Do In Missouri: A Rural OB/Gyn’s Efforts to Improve Access to Care

In the Show-Me State, a wave of rural hospital closures began in the 2010s and continued into the next decade, recently hitting Boonville, Missouri, ...

Sex Ed Isn’t Actually About Sex

As a teen in rural Appalachia, I didn’t know what I was missing when it came to my abstinence-only sex education. It wasn’t until I endured an emotionally abusive relationship as a young medical student that I began to question how I, as a strong, independent woman, could end up in something so psychologically toxic. After gaining the silent courage to leave that relationship, I did a deep dive into unhealthy relationships and how we, as a society, can prevent this type of violence. ...

A Worsening Crisis: Obstetric Care in Rural America

Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving. —Mahmoud Fathalla There is a crisis in the United States… a crisis that will worsen ...

The Changing Landscape of Telehealth Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

Merv is my 94-year-old patient living in Washington, D.C. in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, attempting to continue his treatments for diabetes, hypertension, and leukemia. He’s at significantly increased risk for severe COVID infection, though fortunately, due to Medicare’s