By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Both St. Luke and Hillsboro Community Hospital clinics have medical students who rotate through their medical clinics as part of their training.

Physician Casey McNeil has a University of Kansas student, Robert Boyle, following him on rounds.

Boyle, a fourth-year student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, is doing a month-long rotation learning about rural medicine. He started Jan. 1.

Previous rotations elsewhere included pediatric surgery, hospital, and obstetrics and gynecology.

He has one rotation to go — pediatric critical care.

Boyle is a non-traditional student whose first career was with The Navigators, an interdenominational ministry that focuses on one-to-one discipleship. He started medical school at age 32. He is also a father of four.

At Marion, he likes taking care of patients in clinic, hospital, and emergency settings.

One thing he’s learned is the importance of listening.

“I really like it because of the community feel,” Boyle said.

The hospital has worked with medical students when asked since at least 2000, clinic director Misty Hett said. That includes not only people studying to become physicians but also people studying to become nurse practitioners and to work in other medical specialties.

“They follow along with the doctors and go in with the patient, then report to the doctor, and they make a plan together,” she said. “Boyle is the first one we’ve had for a while.”

Their schools contact the clinic when a student needs a rural medicine rotation, and the clinic pairs the student with a provider.

“Typically, they stay a month,” Hett said. “Most of them come from KU.”

Boyle hopes to become an ophthalmologist and specialize in eye surgery.

The next medical student isn’t lined up yet, Hett said.

HCH recently had a student as well.

Physician Autumn Weir, who began her full-time practice at HCH in September 2021, said she was delighted to work with students.

“I think training the next generation of providers is important,” Weir said.

She works with medical and osteopathic students, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in training.

How long they are at Hillsboro depends on their course of study, Weir said.

The students are exposed to a variety of medical settings, such as seeing patients in the clinic and in the emergency department.

With a rural medicine rotation, they get to work with all ages from newborns to hospice patients, she said.

“You get to show them about taking care of people through all stages of life,” Weir said. “We can provide a wide variety of learning.”

Stephen Grillot, a physician since 1993 who has been at Hillsboro Community Hospital since April 2020, also is enthusiastic about working with students.

“Part of our oath is to help people, to teach and to mentor,” Grillot said. “That’s how we learn.”

Grillot has mentored dozens of students studying to become medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, advanced practice nurse practitioners, and physician assistants.

Grillot learns from the students as well because they are steeped in the newest information.

“They’ve got all the new ideas,” he said. “They make you think.”