I had a great month working with Dr. McIntyre in Dillon, Montana. My month there was all outpatient, but the doctors all do several weeks of inpatient medicine a year so I think sometimes that is mixed in. The average day consisted of seeing about 10 patients in the clinic. There were typically 2 yearly physicals and the remainder were problem-based follow up. Dr. McIntyre definitely made an effort to get patients to follow up while I was still in town so that I could follow cases along. We suspected temporal arteritis in a patient while I was there and managed to get her to Butte for a temporal artery biopsy and get the results back all while I was still in town . I probably saw her 5 times during the month and I think that gives you a flavor for the type of devoted care that is given to the community. All of the patients were so nice and appreciative of the care they received. We also went into the hospital for personal visits to see Dr. McIntyre’s own patients and also to do procedures like EGDs. I also shadowed the orthopedist and OBGYN who worked across the hall for a few days as well. I think Dr. McIntyre makes an effort to let you do things like that if you are interested at all. It was never a matter if you seeing patients to “take work off of her hands” or anything like that, it was all catered to what experience you wanted and how to make that happen.

As for the Montana piece, I thought it was awesome. I had every weekend off and got to travel to Missoula, Bozeman, Livingston, Helena, and all the hot springs in between. For someone who had only driven through Montana, it was such a fun way to experience a new scenery and culture. I thought Dillon was a super cute and affordable community. The provided housing was great, the taco bus was delicious, and then there is the Patagonia outlet – which has new things on sale every week… Meghan Johnston can tell you more about because evidently she used to work there.

Anyways, go to Dillon!