Episode 18
Evolution of the North American Rural Surgical Society
Episode Transcript
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:00:11] Welcome to the Rural American Surgeon. I'm your host, Dr. Randy Lehman, a general surgeon from Indiana. This show is tailored around the nuts and bolts of rural general surgery practice. You'll find topics such as practical surgical tips, rural lifestyle, finance, training, practice models, and more. We have a segment called Classic Rural Surgery Stories where you'll get a feel for how practice in the country differs from the city. If rural surgery is your passion, this show is for you. So now that the ChloraPrep has dried, let's make our incision.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:00:47] Welcome back to another episode of the Rural American Surgeon. Today we'll be talking about the North American Rural Surgical Society, which I believe is one of the premier, premier societies that you can be involved in as a rural surgeon in the United States, in Canada, anywhere else in North America. We have a society that's actually dedicated to surgery in rural America. And as you know, rural surgery is different than surgery in the city. Your resources are limited, your practice, in some ways, there are pieces of general surgery that you may not do, but then it may be more diverse in that you may have a broader spectrum in other ways.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:01:23] In the late 1980s, there was a group of rural surgeons in the Northern Plains, which would be the states around Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, I think maybe from Wisconsin. There were some members that were out in rural places performing vascular surgery. And in order to have camaraderie and to have a society to be able to come and meet and discuss cases, the Northern Plains Vascular Surgery Society was started in 1987. They first met in Montana, and then they transitioned their meeting place to Denver. They've been meeting at the Brown Palace for quite some time now, and Dr. Rutherford regularly attended their meetings and supported their meetings. They had a Rutherford lecture.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:15] So then, over time, 2015 marked the last year where there was shrinking membership and shrinking interest in the Northern Plains Vascular Surgical Society. At that time, there was still a group of surgeons that wanted to continue to meet, and the needs of those surgeons had just changed. It was no longer talking necessarily about vascular surgery, more talking about their actual current practices in rural America, which were what a modern rural surgery practice looks like. So in 2017, the Northern Plains Rural Surgical Society held its first meeting. And since then, there has been continued steady growth of this society each year.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:00] I have attended each year since 2020. For me, it's a can't miss conference. It's extremely relevant to my practice. Every single lecture is something that I do. It's a surgeon's lounge for rural surgery, which, as you know, often doesn't exist because in your hospital you may be the only one or there's a small group that you talk to about cases. But for me personally, it's usually keeping in touch with people by phone to bounce cases off of them and so on. But this is a place where I can actually make some friends that I can talk about cases with, that I can meet up with and share experiences and just learn. It's a very practical conference.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:17] Last year we voted to rename our society because now there's a lot of people from Texas and Oklahoma and I'm from Indiana. It's basically a group of mostly American surgeons, but then we had Lauren Smithson come speak, who of course is Canadian. And so the question is, do you make it just American or United States? What we ended up choosing as the name was the North American Rural Surgical Society. And that name change was just implemented at the last meeting. We have our new website which is NorthAmericanRSS.org. If you go to that website, you can then join the society which includes your membership to the conference.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:04:03] The conference has always been on Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend in Denver and most recently at the Brown Palace, although we may eventually outgrow that location. So if you want to see the historic Brown Palace, come in January of 2025. There's decreased rates for residents and for medical students to attend. It's free. We would love to have you and just learn more about your practice and share stories. Usually the agenda is a guest speaker on Friday night with a nice dinner at Maggiano's, which is an Italian restaurant. The next day is an eight-hour day of lectures. The lectures are rapid fire.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:05:20] We also have resident debates. We have good breaks where we can have lively discussion, snacks, and friendship, and then afterwards. My understanding is this year there's not a full out dinner, but it's more like an appetizers mixer after the conference is over in the Brown Palace and then everybody disperses. There might be some people that are hanging around in the Brown Palace that get together. I'd like to see something more organized at some point in the future and maybe we'll just be doing this with our own personal groups. But I mean you're going all the way to Denver, you might as well go skiing. But there are people of different ages and interests and so maybe it's not for everybody.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:05:58] For this year I'm planning to attend. It is January 17th, I believe that's correct, the evening of January 17th. And the conference will be on January 18th at the Brown Palace. And I hope to see you there, and if not, then I hope to see you consider joining and showing up at some of the future meetings. As we grow, we'll need to plan for future locations.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:06:23] But I really think that obviously rural surgery is a critical part of our national infrastructure to meet the needs of Americans. And as we saw through the pandemic especially, this is what I've continued to hear over and over is when we're at capacity in the city, it's important also to have these small hospitals for a wash backwards because there's actually a lot of capacity where we can keep people. Our hospital, our other hospitals can fill up. Now if we shut those hospitals down, we lose that reservoir as well.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:07:00] So there's a lot of different ways to think about those rural hospitals. For the most part, I just think about that one patient that's in front of me and how it's more convenient for them to be getting the care that's close to home. But then there's the level that it's good for the community, it's good for the hospital viability, which is good in so many other ways.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:07:32] So that's sort of the North American Rural Surgical Society from my perspective and again, haven't been involved in leadership. I have presented once, I am presenting this year as well on some of the challenges of private practice in rural surgery, which we will talk about more on other episodes of this show, and how you can sort of pivot, partner with the hospital and turn it into a working solution. But that's going to be a very quick talk, although there probably will be a lot of interest in it. I hope to see you there and I hope that you're having a great start to your 2025. We will see you next time on the Rural American Surgeon.
