Third-year Texas Tech University Health Sciences medical student Austin Rodgers got his introduction to the healthcare system when he moved in with his grandparents at Elbert, Texas, to help with his grandfather’s medical issues.
His grandfather, who Rodgers said he was very close to, had to have emergency surgery and his kidneys were “completely shot” afterwards.
“He went from a capable, could do everything himself man to needing dialysis three times a week for four hours a day. He just lost a lot of his ability to do the things he found comfort and joy in. And me being the young, happy-go-lucky kid, I said, I’ll help you. So I actually moved in and lived with my grandparents for a few years to help take care of him. That was my true introduction to the healthcare system. I saw how his doctors changed his life and gave him back quality of life. I said, I want to be that person someday,” Rodgers said.
The closest hospital to Elbert was about 30 to 45 minutes away in Graham.
“Three times a week we’d have to drive them there and back just so he could get his dialysis. If anything happened, we’d have to drive him there. It’s a very small hospital, so we’d have to drive him even further away if something really happened,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers has a bachelor’s degree in biology with minors in chemistry and psychology from University of North Texas. He earned a master’s at Texas Tech and decided to stay for medical school because a lot of his friends were medical students and they were so nice and down-to-earth.
Part of why he decided to get a master’s degree was to expand his knowledge.
“I didn’t think I was ready for medical school, to be honest. More of that anxiety. Also, just to boost my chances of getting into medical school, because it is so competitive. And so I was like, alright, if I’m going to do this, I want to make sure I can actually get in this time,” Rodgers said.
He added that he really liked the one-on-one aspect of medical school.
“That was definitely one of the things I wanted for my clinical campus. I wanted to actually know my attendings and know my residents. It’s kind of lived up to what my expectations are,” Rodgers said.
He added that he hasn’t settled on what area of medicine he wants to go into, but he’s enjoying emergency medicine right now.
“I’ve had a lot of really good interactions. I’ve learned so much from there. I do frequently get told that I would be a good family medicine doctor. It’s a smiling thing. I love kids. That’s usually what people say,” Rodgers said.
He might get more variety going into emergency medicine, particularly in large cities, but there is a lot of overlap between family medicine and ER.
“Now more and more more people are using ERs as their primary care because healthcare is so inaccessible in some areas and so more things that would normally be managed by your primary doctor, those people are now coming to the ER, and it’s really unfortunate,” Rodgers said.
He said he was a little nervous going into his third year because he would be interacting with patients all the time.
“Naturally, that evokes a little bit of anxiety because you think, they want me to help take care of these people. I have no idea what I’m doing. … It turns out you actually know a lot more than you think you do. The residents have been so affirming and helpful here. They’ll kind of nudge you along to the right answer, even if you start rambling a little bit as I’m prone to do. … Overall it’s been a really, really good experience and a lot of my anxieties (were) kind of proven not true,” Rodgers said.
Students switch rotations every eight weeks.
“Within those, you’ll get to do a variety of things. So for example, for the past two weeks before this, I actually went down to Fort Stockton in family medicine … They actually offer you two weeks where you can go out to really rural communities — Fort Stockton, Alpine, those types of places. You can see even more rural medicine than you would get here in Odessa. … You kind of get to pick a little bit of what you want. There’s some structure. You’ll do some clinicals. You’ll do some inpatient (care) like I’m on right now,” Rodgers said.
Within family medicine, they do one day of jail visits where they will go to the juvenile center in Odessa and they see adults, too.
“We get to see part of that … jail population … And then when we’re in psych, we have the option to go down to Big Spring to the state hospital for a week,” Rodgers said.
The juvenile center experience was “heartbreaking,” he said.
“To see people who have so many untreated conditions, especially mental conditions, that kind of lead people to a lot of those places. You see lots of substance abuse. Unfortunately, even at the Teen Center, lots of unintended like teen pregnancies. That’s very common. It really is just a melting pot of some of the worst ills, unfortunately, of society,” Rodgers said.
