WREX.com – Rockford’s News LeaderMedical Students Learn About Injuries on the Farm

Medical Students Learn About Injuries on the Farm

By Samantha Ptashkin

FREEPORT- Medical students trade in their lab equipment for farm equipment, at least for one day. They took a field trip to a Freeport farm to understand one of the nation's most dangerous professions and their potential patients.

The tour is called "No Harm On the Farm." The 25 medical students from U of I's Rural Medical Education Program who went say it was quite a change of pace from their normal school day.

For 24-year-old medical student Emilee Bushman, a day on the farm only seems natural. She grew up on a farm and knows that danger can lurk among the land and cause serious injuries. "I want to go back to a rural area in Illinois as a family practitioner," Bushman said.

She's one of 60 students in U of I's Rural Medical Education Program, all learning the steps they need to care for their future patients in rural communities. "My uncle got his arm caught in auger and he lost his arm from the elbow down," said Austin Lamb, a second year medical student.

The students learned that a 2,000 pound cow for example, doesn't always behave as passive as it seems and handling large animals like these can be dangerous. "These are the people we're going to serve in the future, we need to know what kind of situations they can get themselves into so we can help treat them," Bushman said.

"Some of the hazards on farms are very acute, in other words, they would cause sudden injury, or possibly even a fatality," said Doug Scheider, who gave the students a tour of his farm.

After learning about toxic chemicals found on a farm, the medical students witnessed a mock tractor rollover to learn what to do for patients in that type of accident.