Primary Care Population Medicine

Ella van Deventer already had an interest in “big picture” approaches to health care before applying to the PC-PM program. She wanted to examine how health care decisions impact different populations, especially in terms of access to care. The LIC was a natural extension of her career interests.

“I’m also someone who cares a lot about rapport and connections with patients, so I thought the opportunity to do longitudinal care would be a good fit,” she says.

The LIC offers its own set of challenges. As she experienced the stressors of her clinical rotations, the mentorship from the fellows left an impression on van Deventer and motivated her to become a fellow herself.

“I became interested in being a resource for people who are going through those same things,” she says.

One of the aspects of mentorship she embraced was providing personalized support to third-year students. She helped them manage their time and set up an advanced clinical mentorship the following year. There were other, less tangible lessons too, like how to offer a safe space for students to discuss their emotions and hardships while still challenging them in their roles.

“One lesson that I’ve tried to pass on is that you’re not going to feel like an expert at anything, which is going to be uncomfortable, but you need to lean into it,” she says.

Van Deventer’s experiences with the LIC and as a fellow transformed how she approached learning and solidified her interest in pursuing medical education. Both provided valuable development for her teaching skills, like how to motivate people, ways to integrate lessons across specialties, and how to validate the “intensive emotional experience” that comes with medical school, she says.

“More tangibly, too, the role prepared me a little bit more for interactions with administrators, to be more of a conduit for decision-making and relaying messages between students and the administration,” van Deventer says.