Third-Grader’s Diagram Comparing Life in Country, City is Published in Key Medical Magazine, Thanks to UA Professor

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – How did a third-grader from Sylacauga end up being published in a respected journal on rural medicine?

The story starts with Jim Ellison, a 2007-2008 University of Alabama Rural Medical Scholar from Talladega County, Ala., who’s now a first-year medical student at UA’s School of Medicine. The Rural Medical Scholars Program, conducted by The University of Alabama and the UA School of Medicine, provides pre-med and medical students from rural Alabama with training as they prepare to become rural physicians. His mother, Cindy J. Ellison, teaches third grade in a private school outside Sylacauga.

One of her students, Levi Carpenter, read the story about the city mouse and the country mouse switching places and began thinking about the differences between city and country life. So Levi drew a Venn diagram that showed the differences – and similarities – between city and country life.

For example, city life provides “hunting and Saturdays” and “lots of pigeons,” while country life provides “more family time” and “lots of wildlife.” In the middle, Levi listed some shared characteristics: “both have jobs”; “Both made by God”; and “Both have pets.”

After Jim Ellison’s mother showed the Venn diagram to Jim, he passed it along to Dr. John Wheat, professor of community and rural medicine at The University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences, who founded and directs the Rural Medical Scholars Program. Wheat, who is deeply concerned with recruiting rural students into medicine, was quite taken by the Venn diagram.

“That is the purist thing I’ve seen to describe the different values of growing up in the city and the country,” Wheat says. “It illustrates why rural students are more likely to choose rural medical practice than non-rural students. And primary care physicians for rural areas in Alabama are desperately needed.”

So, Wheat received permission from Levi’s parents to reproduce the illustration and passed it on to the editors of Rural Roads, the quarterly magazine of the National Rural Health Association. The drawing appears in the latest issue beneath a brief article by Wheat . If you’d like to see the Venn diagram as drawn by Levi, go to http://www.ruralhealthweb.org/go/left/publications-and-news/rural-roads. It’s on page 45 of Fall 2008, Part II.

For more information on contacting the subjects, call Richard LeComte, University of Alabama Media Relations, at 205/348-3782 or send e-mail to rllecomte@advance.ua.edu.

The College of Community Health Sciences operates a comprehensive, state-of-the-art medical clinic, University Medical Center, where College faculty members conduct their medical practices and where students and residents receive clinical experience and training. The College’s research component supports faculty and student research efforts, including clinical trials.