Summer Internship: Nicole Egan

After starting as a Senior Project Assistant for the Office of Statewide Clinical Education Programs (OSCEP) three weeks ago, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in a myriad of things. For those of you who are not familiar with OSCEP, let me introduce you to what role this office serves as part of the University of Iowa’s  Carver College of Medicine, as I truly believe it is a hidden gem!
Established in 1974, OSCEP has principal responsibility for developing and coordinating collegiate outreach programs for medical education and community service. It has three divisions:

• Community-Based Medical Education
• Information Systems and Research Services
• Community Services

The Community-Based Medical Education division was established by the Iowa Legislature in 1973 and provides the venue for carrying out the University of Iowa’s medical education activities that occur outside the academic health center in communities across the state, such as faculty development workshops, clerkships, shadowing programs, rotations, and the seven community-based family medicine residency programs.
The Information Systems and Research Services division maintains continuous inventories of Iowa’s major health professionals, including all allopathic and osteopathic physicians, pharmacists, dentists, physician assistants, and advanced practice nurses. This division uses its health professions tracking systems to chart specific trends, forecast changes in the state’s health professions workforce, characterize the workforce demographically, and gauge the return on the state’s investments in health professions education.
The Community Services division is responsible for developing relations with and providing services for the benefit of Iowa physicians, practices, and health care organizations. The services include creating a comprehensive annual directory of practice sites offering job opportunities for physicians, PA’s, and NP’s; aiding in recruitment, placement and retention of providers across Iowa communities (particularly rural ones); offering practice management options (i.e. practice feasibility studies, practice management consultation, practice analysis and market research); maintaining administrative support services for the eight UI-Affiliated Residency Programs; and providing practice coverage for rural physicians.
If it sounds like OSCEP is involved in a lot of cool things, you are correct! I primarily work in the Community Services division, but I interact with the other two divisions on an almost daily basis in order to complete my assigned projects. One of my main projects for the summer is to survey every Iowa General Internist, Hospitalist, Pediatrician, General Surgeon, OBGYN, and Psychiatrist for any open physician, NP, or PA practice opportunities in their offices, clinics, or hospitals (otherwise known as the Opportunities Directory). While it sounds pretty straight forward, it is anything but! Often times survey responses require clarification…which is where the fun comes in! On any given day, I might find myself clarifying recruitment efforts with a CEO of a community hospital in southeast Iowa or an executive director of a mental health clinic in northwest Iowa or a physician in central Iowa. This has not only given me experience networking and talking with current healthcare professionals, but it has also helped my understanding of how health systems, hospitals, and clinics are integrated in Iowa as well as how such entities go about recruiting physicians, PA’s and NP’s.
Although a significant amount of my time is spent on the Opportunities Directory, I have also been able to work on several other projects. I have been able to sit in on a few physician contract reviews where physicians are being recruited by hospitals. Doing so allowed me to see the physician side of things along with the ins-and-outs of what contracts look like; why certain provisions are in the contract to protect all parties; how different salary and compensation arrangements work; and what incentives hospitals use to entice physicians to their communities. I have also been involved in project from a hospital’s point of view of how to encourage an independent physician group to align with the hospital in addition to how the hospital can best recruit a new physician. Besides projects I have had numerous opportunities to further my learning on various healthcare topics, including being able to attend a webinar on telemedicine, reading our office’s monthly “FYIs” on up-to-date healthcare and medical education policies, and sitting in on the IA Family Medicine Residency Network Research Symposium.
These are but a few examples of the activities and projects I am currently involved in and working on, and I look forward to new projects throughout the summer. Not only am I enjoying what I am working on and learning, but I have also really enjoyed the people I work with. My preceptor, Lynette Lancial, is an 1990 alumnus of the program, and she is always looking for ways in which I can learn new things, grow in my professional development, and interact with other healthcare professionals and providers. Overall, this internship has proven to be a good fit for me as well as my future interests.