Mt. Pleasant med student prepares for residency

For medical student Sarah Van Dorin, moving forward in a pandemic was the only option. The pandemic reduced options for doing rotations at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics where her many programs were put on hold. For a fourth-year medical student it meant missing out on working in the hospital with doctors for the past year.

'It was a hard time when the Carver College of Medicine pulled us out of our clinical rotations last March,” she said. 'They wanted to reduce the number of people that were in the hospital, but this was also a time that the incoming fourth years were picking what specialties we really wanted to do.

'I know it was hard for myself and my classmates to make that decision without doing the rotations that we'd normally be doing.”

Van Dorin, who grew up in Mt. Pleasant, is preparing for her transition from medical school to residency. She will fulfill her residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals where she will study internal medicine.

'I'm ready to transition, and I'm really excited to focus more on the specialty that I chose,” Van Dorin said. 'I'm also excited to work more closely with the residents and faculty I've come to know in the last couple of years.

'I wanted to do internal medicine because it is a broad specialty for doctors with sub specialties, like cardiology and pulmonology,” she said. 'I love that broadness and how it focuses on the body systems, plus you get to deal with patients with acute issues and chronic issues, which I really like.”

Though Sarah Van Dorin hadn't originally planned on going into medicine when she first went to college, she has always had that influence in her life.

'My mom was a nurse and now she's the Henry County Public Health director, so I've been exposed to that side of medicine for a long time,” she said. 'When I went to the University of Iowa for my undergrad, I initially wasn't too sure what I wanted to do. It was after I did some shadowing at the hospitals and volunteer work at the VA that I decided on medicine.”

Going to medical school and doing rotations at the University of Iowa Hospitals has had its ups and downs for Sarah. She spoke about a time during her clinical rotations that was both heartwarming and heart breaking.

'I had a patient that was going through a very difficult time, and it was hard for me to see that patient going through that,” she said. 'But it was also heartwarming to see the family stay around the patient and help motivate them and how grateful that family was for the help we were trying to give them.

'I just love the patient-family interaction and the interaction I get to have with them,” Sarah said. 'It was a big thing that brought me into internal medicine and being a doctor in general.”