STUDENT DOCTORS MAKING THE ROUNDS

Tom Weber, a third year intern at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, dictated notes after seeing a patient at the Cape Girardeau County Health Clinic.

Tom Weber, a student at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, gave a checkup to 15-month-old Kaylee Spearman at the Cape Girardeau County Health Department.

Jessica Casey knows she wants to be a pediatrician. Tom Weber and David Boardman are leaning toward family practice.

Casey, Weber and Boardman are three of 11 Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine students working with osteopathic physicians in Southeast Missouri.

The students, all in their third or fourth years of medical school, are doing rotations in a variety of specialized areas.

Teresa Bieser, who handles the scheduling for the college, estimates 120 osteopaths in the region cooperate in the program, in which students work one-on-one with doctors to hone their medical skills.

"We rotate every month or so in a different specialty with different doctors," said Boardman, a third-year student now assigned to work with Dr. Gordon Jones in Sikeston. Boardman is doing his family practice rotation.

"I basically shadow the physician and kind of do initial work-ups on the patients. I present the patient to the doctors and make recommendations on treatments and the doctor follows me up and we decide what to do," he said.

Students "rotate" through obstetrics, surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine and other specialized areas.

Most rotations last four weeks, but some are as short as two weeks. Internal medicine lasts eight weeks.

Casey, 25, will be graduating at the beginning of June and hopes to set up practice in central New York state, where her family lives.

"The pressure's starting to go away," she said. "This is my last rotation and I'm going into pediatrics, so things are starting to mellow out."

Casey is working with Dr. Joe Blanton in Sikeston.

During their rotations, students do "hands-on" medicine, Casey said.

"When we do obstetrics, we help deliver babies. When we do surgery, we get to assist with that as well," she said.

Weber has been working with Dr. James Kinder at the Rural Health Clinic at Cape Girardeau County's Public Health Center. He's finishing up his pediatrics rotation.

"I'm just basically following Dr. Kinder around and doing the assessments and plans on the kids, presenting it to the doctors," said Weber, 26, a third-year student.

"I've done just about everything in the gamut, from well-baby checks to chicken pox," he said. "It's a different thing from day to day."

Weber is on scholarship through the U.S. Army, in which he is a second lieutenant.

His next rotation will be in obstetrics. He isn't sure where he'll be heading for that assignment.

Casey already knows she'll be going into pediatrics. "There's just not anything else I like doing as much," she said.

She knew early on surgery, though considered more glamorous, wasn't for her.

"I like working with kids and I'm not so thrilled working with adults," Casey said. "I don't mind it, but it's not what I want to do."

Boardman said he's interested in family practice.

"The health care field is trying to channel students in that direction anyway, to primary care specialties," he said.

Weber likes family practice, but the Army will be making the final decision.

"It's pretty much up in the air right now," he said.

Osteopathic medical students take four years of basic post-graduate medical education.

If they choose, they can also continue with a specialized residency program for two to six years.

Developed in 1874 by frontier physician Andrew Taylor Still, osteopathic medicine emphasizes treating the person as a whole, with emphasis on the musculoskeletal system and the body's structure in overall wellness.