Stroman interns at Philip Health Services

A high school experience, shadowing the radiology department, gave Sioux City, IA native, Joel Stroman the desire to study medicine. Stroman has been an intern at Philip Health Services the past three weeks. “While in high school, I had a great experience shadowing in the radiology department at MercyOne in Sioux City,” said Stroman “I had the opportunity to see the health care team working together to take care of a variety of patients and decided I wanted to be a part of a team like that. Every health care experience I had after that further reaffirmed my desire to study medicine.”
Stroman is nearing the end of his second year of medical school. He will officially start his third year in July. While working in Philip, Stroman has had many opportunities to work with all the providers as well as nursing staff. “I have been following all of the family medicine doctors here in Philip,” said Stroman. “Drs. Blackham, Holman, and Klopper have all been wonderful to follow and learn from. I have also had great experiences with Audrey Smeenk PA-C and Terry Henrie, PA-C, as well as all of the nursing staff in the clinic and hospital. I am going to miss everyone.”
Working as a surgeon is very high on Stroman’s list. “I love the tangible aspect of surgery and the ability of surgeons to fix concrete problems that patients may be dealing with,” said Stroman. “Whether I end up being in trauma surgery or some other surgical subspecialty, that remains to be seen. The only surgical subspecialty I’m really not interested in at the moment is ortho.”
“After this rural rotation, I will return to my normal clinical rotations in Yankton for the next year,” said Stroman. “I’ll be in the hospital and clinic there (Yankton) until approximately next March, and then I’ll likely go to Sioux Falls to finish out medical school." Stroman would love to stay and practice medicine in South Dakota, and will probably end up on the east side where his family resides. 
“My favorite thing about working in the rural area of Philip was getting to know all of the great people here,” said Stroman. “The members of the hospital staff are wonderful and all of the patients were so kind in allowing me to work with them and get to know them,” concluded Stroman.