Eastern AHEC Rural Health Immersion - Student Reflections: Claire Dudek
Healthy Acadia has served as Maine’s Eastern Area Health Education Center (AHEC) since 2023. Our service area includes Washington, Hancock, Waldo, and Knox counties.
Maine AHECs provide community-based clinical training experiences to health professions students; encourage Maine youth to pursue careers in the health professions; offer training and continuing education programs to practicing health professionals; and develop public health approaches to address current and emerging community needs.
As part of this program, Healthy Acadia and community partners work together to create rural health immersion opportunities for health professions students to learn more about rural and underserved communities, including Rural Health Immersions (RHI) for Care for the Underserved Pathways (CUP) AHEC Scholars. and community-based experiential learning opportunities for non-CUP scholars.
We will periodically publish guest blog posts from AHEC Scholars who chose to share their experience with the program.
Guest post contributed by Claire Dudek, UNE PA Student. Claire participated in our March 2023 RHI and reflects on the experience.
For the first component of our rural health immersion, we experienced a morning packed with experiences in Isleford (Little Cranberry Island) and Great Cranberry Island. We were joined by Simone and Margaret from Maine Seacoast Mission, and as a group, we boarded the Beal and Bunker mail boat to embark from the Northeast Harbor to Isleford. Upon our arrival, we first spoke to Mary, who is one of two EMTs on the island of approximately 70 year-round residents. We met at the island’s library and community center, and our discussion centered around the thrills and complications that surround providing basic medical care and accessing higher medical from the island. During our discussion, I was surprised to learn that when an individual’s medical condition requires that they leave to island to receive a higher level of care, they are placed on the nearest available boat for transport. These boats may be that of a local lobster fisherman, a local’s private boat, or even a tour boat.
Given that the island has so few residents, Mary also explained that she often finds that islanders call or text her personal phone, rather than call 911, to see if they “must” go off island to seek medical treatment for their complaint. This further revealed the inherent difficulties that come with living on an island; going off island tends to be expensive, time-consuming, and inaccessible to those that do not have a private boat. While the strong island community can assist in times of need, I would imagine that this assistance can only go so far.
After completing our discussion with Mary, we made our way down to the docks to meet with a local lobster fisherman and co-owner of “Little Cranberry Lobster,” a lobster fishermans’ co-op. We were able to ask him questions about living as a 6th generation islander and fisherman. He spoke of concerns regarding the rising cost of bait and how it has affected their ability to catch more lobster. However, he also said that their yearly catch in pounds has superseded 2 million pounds of lobster, and that is in large part thanks to the existence of the co-op and fishermen staying in the business. As someone whose family did not emigrate to the U.S. until four generations ago, it is interesting to think about how the fisherman’s children are 7th generation islanders, and how much of their identity must be attached to Islesford, as well as what they are leaving behind by choosing to live away from the island.
Next, we departed from Islesford to head to Great Cranberry Island, which curiously has only 40 year-round residents, despite being the larger island. Upon arrival, we met Katie and Cameron, who are the school principal and a school teacher, respectively, at the grades K through 4 school there. It was explained to us that Islesford and Great Cranberry share a school system, with the grades 4 through 8 students studying on Islesford. The Great Cranberry School currently has 7 students, two classrooms, and one “gymnasium” on the second floor. For most organized sports, students must leave the island and go to MDI, which inevitably leads to many students not participating.
We began our visit with the students with a lesson about citrus fruits and allowed them to sample and describe the different fruits as we spoke about them. These students ranged from 5 to 9 years old, and it was interesting to observe the different descriptions that the students gave, as they varied with age. At one point, we spoke to the students about their friends, and many expressed that they have “summer friends,” who would be arriving soon. These friends were part of families that only spent summers on the island, a time of year that adds approximately 200 residents to the island.
After our lesson, we spent recess time in the gymnasium teaching the students how to use the jump ropes that we brought them. All in all, I was blown away by the kindness and confidence toward us strangers that each of these young students held, despite living on an island with such a small population.
My overall takeaway from my experiences on the islands was that with a small, somewhat isolated community comes deeper care for one’s neighbors. The islanders really are there for one another in a variety of ways, and it is this care that strengthens and maintains their unique community for past and future generations to come.