Spectrum of Service: URMED Grad Finds Rewards in Serving Patients in Manhattan

BVU alum reflects on how rural internships in Storm Lake and Pocahontas hospitals fueled her passion for career as a physician assistant now working in a city of 8.2 million.

Emily Block’s experience as an intern in Buena Vista University’s Undergraduate Rural Medicine Education and Development (URMED), a landmark medical internship program created to help serve rural areas underserved by medical providers, led her to a profession as a physician assistant.

Where her career started might surprise you. The former URMED intern works in another geographic region underserved by medical professionals: Manhattan, one of the most densely populated places in the U.S.

“There’s a parallel to URMED and what I’m doing now as both places (rural Iowa and Manhattan) have great demands on the healthcare system,” Block, a 2016 BVU graduate, says. “There’s a need for more medical professionals and more support in both areas.”

Block, 27, started her collegiate career at a larger institution but transferred to BVU after the first semester. She met the faculty of BVU’s School of Science, signed up for track and field, and made the switch.
 
“I ran in track and field, but I ran pretty poorly,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “But I competed for one year and met a lot of people.”

Block worked on campus, serving as an academic assistant who directed study sessions in anatomy and physiology. She participated in Student Activities Board. She coached gymnastics in Storm Lake.

Professors such as her advisor Dr. Kristy McClellan, who now serves Associate Professor of Anatomy at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Utah, and now-President Brian Lenzmeier made a difference for Block, as did URMED, whose genesis can be traced to BVU alum and Professor of Biology Emeritus Dr. Richard Lampe. 

“I had great URMED experiences at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center and the Pocahontas Community Hospital,” Block says. “It was a diversity of experiences, job-shadowing in surgery, OBGYN, and dermatology. I met and saw first-hand the work of dieticians, physical therapists, and physician assistants.”

After graduating, Block worked as a nursing assistant in a neonatal intensive care unit in Iowa City, gaining hours needed for acceptance in the St. Ambrose University Physician Assistant Program. Following her 29 months in PA school and rotations throughout Iowa and Illinois, Block applied for dozens of neonatal ICU positions across the country. Officials at New York City Health + Hospitals/ Bellevue asked if she’d come interview.

Block flew to New York and spent two days in interviews. She was offered the job one month later and reported to work in “The Big Apple” in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I love my work,” Block says. “It is so gratifying to go to work each day and know you’re going to be helping the most helpless.”

Block has cared for multiple preemies who weigh one pound.
 
“My first day at work in New York we had a baby delivered that weighed less than one pound,” she remembers. “That baby ultimately went home breathing on their own, needing no extra respiratory support. Their fight to survive is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Away from work, Block spends time getting to know New York City. “I live two blocks from Central Park and that’s where I run,” she says. “Broadway just reopened, so my boyfriend and I are going soon.”

And while the mode of transit to and from work is different than it was in Iowa (Block is thankful she doesn’t have a car in Manhattan; she runs to work or takes public transportation), the parallel in serving a geographic region under stress remains.

“The parallel is in the provider-to-population ratio,” she says, comparing rural Iowa to all the boroughs that make up the New York metropolitan area. “With the massive amount of people here, there is demand placed on the healthcare system. There’s a need here for more medical professionals and more support, as there is in rural Iowa.”

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