Medical students’ podcast explores careers of rural physicians
Just an hour’s drive from her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, across the state line, West Virginia University School of Medicine student Veronica Gibbons discovered a different landscape in healthcare. The contrast between urban and rural physicians’ day-to-day routines prompted her to launch a podcast that delivers insight for doctors and students.
“When I came to West Virginia for medical school, I honestly was so surprised by how much I didn’t know about the state, particularly about the health disparities,” Gibbons said. “I was quite struck by the numbers. West Virginia tops the charts in almost all chronic diseases.”
The big questions that weighed heavy on Gibbons’s mind were why such bold statistics exist and what challenges physicians practicing in the state face.
“It’s integral to my education and to medical students, especially the ones who are going to stay in West Virginia, to understand what it’s like to work in this state,” she said. “Your education is an intensive period of time. You have to learn so much about medicine in general.”
Immersion into rural healthcare is a major part of the WVU medical student experience. Opportunities abound through projects and programs to get out into the field to better the health and wellbeing of residents throughout the state. To enhance their training, students can enroll in the Rural Track program where they can earn scholarships and work with clinicians in remote areas. In addition to those choices, all students are required to spend at least eight weeks of their non-campus based clinical rotations at West Virginia community sites to earn their medical degrees.
Still, Gibbons wanted to dive deeper to learn more about the person underneath the white coat.
This thought led Gibbons to establish Mountaineer Medical Hour, a medical student-produced podcast operating as a student interest group.
“On their own initiative, these students created an informational podcast series allowing faculty to share their experiences in medicine and education,” said Dr. Norman Ferrari, chief academic officer, vice dean of Education and Academic Affairs, and professor and chair in the School of Medicine Department of Medical Education. “What a wonderful way to explore and catalog the wide variety of personal stories for generations to come.”
Gibbons describes the approximate 45-minute podcast sessions as a way to humanize physicians and hear about their specialties and experiences working in West Virginia. For medical students, it can open the door to making a connection for mentorship or learning about a field of medicine they’re not familiar with.
“We produce the podcast to have a collection of conversations that anybody can listen to,” Gibbons said. “The actual experience of making the podcast is really what the interest group is about — physicians feeling heard and seen by a medical student and the student being able to learn and gain something from that conversation.”
Among the physicians interviewed for the podcast is Dr. Mahreen Hashmi, professor and assistant dean for student services in the School of Medicine departments of Medical Education and Obstetrics and Gynecology. She said she’s not only grateful for the opportunity, but also hopes her story offers clarity or encouragement for students as the navigate their professional journeys.
“Joining medical students for this podcast interview was a refreshing chance to reflect on my career and the lessons that shaped it,” Hashmi said. “Their thoughtful questions went beyond milestones. They wanted to understand the motivations, challenges and values behind my path.
“I was struck by their curiosity and how deeply they’re already thinking about the human side of medicine. Sharing my experiences with them reminded me how much the field evolves and how the next generation will continue to shape it.”
To get the project going, Gibbons and her group reached out to Dr. Larry Rhodes, executive director of Rural Programs in the WVU Institute for Community and Rural Health, and professor in the School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics.
“He has been a great resource,” Gibbons said. “He was born and raised in southern West Virginia and has given some talks about working within rural outreach.”
To gain more insight, and help on the production side, Gibbons recruited medical school classmate Reagan Campbell, a resident of Mineral County in the state’s Eastern Panhandle and participant in the Rural Track program. Additional members of the student interest group are Amelia Angotti, secretary, of Clarksburg; Mikayla Smith, treasurer, of Parkersburg; and Julia Corton, public affairs officer, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gibbons serves as president, while Campbell is vice president.
Although Gibbons has conducted most of the interviews, she and Campbell have a goal of getting more medical students involved and expanding their reach to include more physicians from around the state.
“Most of the doctors we interviewed at the start were the ones we had immediate contact with because we needed an archive to show we’re really serious about this,” Gibbons said. “We want to hear all the stories of physicians in West Virginia, especially the rural ones.”
Last summer, Gibbons interviewed Dr. Mary Long, an addiction medicine specialist at WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute Healthy Minds — Clarksburg and one of the first to complete the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at WVU.
“Addiction Medicine is such a unique aspect of medicine that we are not exposed to and there’s a large group of people in West Virginia that it benefits,” Gibbons said.
Campbell made a four-hour drive to McDowell County, West Virginia’s southernmost county, to interview Dr. Joanna Bailey, an alumna of the WVU School of Medicine and a physician she shadowed as an undergraduate.
“I spent the day with her in her clinic, and it was a really good experience, kind of a full circle thing,” Campbell said. “There are so many challenges clinicians face in healthcare down there. It was really interesting because there are a lot of things we don’t think about like their water quality issues. It’s not just the way it impacts healthcare, but the way it impacts the community as a whole from a broader perspective.”
A new and expanding chapter for the podcast may be unfolding. Gibbons moved to Charleston in April for her third-year rotations and hopes to bring in more interviews from the southern part of the state. Campbell remains in Morgantown for her rotations and will head up the production.