After five years as the director of the UBC Rural Family Practice (RFP) Program, Dr. Karin Blouw is now just wearing three hats in her professional life!  A family physician and preceptor in Smithers, Karin remains part of the NMP team as the Family Practice site lead for the Northwest (UBC MDUP program). 

Looking back on her time as provincial director, Karin has fond memories of all the different people she connected with, many of whom she still liaises within her continuing northwest role.

“I really enjoyed the people I met and collaborated with,” says Karin. “The rural family practice team has been amazing as well as our preceptors across the region, whose commitment is truly outstanding.  We had some major challenges during Covid and I am grateful to all of our rural family practice colleagues who have put out over and over again.

“Everyone did a lot of work to continue teaching and accepting students, especially in the early months, for example, while they were learning to handle virtual medicine at the same time. Our rural family doctors really came through and went the extra mile.”

As part of their third year of studies, every UBC medical student has to undertake a four-week family medicine rotation in a rural B.C. community.  Both the RFP provincial lead and site leads are focused on ensuring that learning opportunities in rural medicine continue to flourish.

“Within rural practice, we have a great deal to offer students from a training perspective, and the rotations are also very important for longitudinal recruitment,” explains Karin. “It’s very exciting to know when a student is coming that they are going to see how we practice medicine in a small centre, where we are often involved with a patient’s hospital care and with deliveries and palliative care.  Rural physicians are involved across the care spectrum, and, basically, a small town is team-based care before you’ve really even started.”

Being able to connect with students has been a favourite aspect of both Karin’s leadership and preceptor roles.

“I love interacting with students. They are rejuvenating and challenging, and they ask the best questions! I have always felt with every student I’ve worked with, either as a preceptor or in one of my lead roles, that they are my future colleague, and in many ways they are already my colleague. And that is really how I see it because that’s how it’s played out over time. "Just last week a former student, now in OG/GYN residency in Vancouver, texted me with an update on a Smithers patient who'd been transferred to Vancouver."

“I am honoured to be part of medicine in our northern B.C. region. I really enjoy working with the NMP team. It’s a very special medical faculty, small, nimble and very professional.”