At the Maine Track Medical School Program’s graduation earlier this month, graduating students described Lincoln Medical Partners surgeon Garth Miller, as a natural educator.

Miller received the Roger A. Renfrew, MD, Rural Teaching Award for his leadership in educating medical students who have expressed an interest in practicing in rural areas. He said the program makes him optimistic about the future of medicine in rural states like Maine.

“It is hard for me to imagine better quality students. They are intelligent, they are engaged, they are enthusiastic and they are good at relating to other people,” said Miller.

The Maine Track program brings third-year Maine Medical Center-Tufts University School of Medicine medical students to communities where they can experience rural medicine and what it is like to live in small towns. Traditionally, medical school programs are based in urban centers.

By exposing medical students to life and the practice of medicine in small towns, the program allows them to develop the relationships that can lead them to return after residency and be the doctors and surgeons that rural areas need.

For Miller, teaching is a chance to give back to his community and profession and work with young people on their way to becoming excellent physicians.

By living and studying in rural communities, Miller said the students not only have the opportunity to experience the relationships that make small town medicine satisfying; they also have the chance to see the advantages of practicing in places like Lincoln County.

“You get to know pretty much everybody in the hospital, your colleagues, the staff as well as your patients and there is much more a sense of belonging,” said Miller.

The relatively small size of the medical community in rural areas and a higher degree of stability within the community can also pay off in better teamwork and better outcomes.

“If you work with the same group of people long enough, pretty soon they anticipate your needs and you don’t even have to ask. They can recognize when there is a problem and jump into action,” said Miller.

That small, closely connected community is also often able to respond to change more readily, which is vital in a medical landscape where technology and medical protocols are constantly changing and where insurance providers are demanding ever-increasing standards of safety.

After experiencing the practice of medicine in a place like Lincoln County, Miller is sure that some of those students will come back, and to him that is the most important part of the program.

“It is inspiring because these are the people who are going to be taking care of all of us. I am just convinced that these young people are going to be great physicians,” Miller said.