So, you’re interested in Emergency Medicine, and better yet, you’re checking out Baystate Medical Center? You already seem like a pretty smart person.

I am Ashley Grant, and I was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. I received my BS in Biology from Saint Leo University in Dade City, FL, and went to medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine; the Bradenton, Fl campus. So then I decided to move to the other side of the country and check out the pro’s and con’s of being a snow shoveling Yankee. So far, so good.

So how does a Floridian end up in Massachusetts? Well, I met my now fiancé David Krahm in medical school, and he’s from the Berkshires; a beautiful little place in western Massachusetts. When it came time to look at programs, he suggested we check out Baystate, and we were sold pretty quickly.

Of course, being 2 people couple’s matching in to EM; we checked out a lot of other programs too, in a lot of other places. No program had the full package, none except Baystate of course. When we started the arduous journey of finding the perfect place to learn we were looking for all the typical stuff I’m sure you’re looking for too. A program with a level 1 trauma center with both penetrating and blunt injury, a high volume of patients, a broad patient population, maybe some free food here and there, and some decent exposure to pediatrics.  

As we progressed through this odyssey we realized there were some things on our list that needed to be moved up on the priority totem-pole. Like for example, it would be nice to spend my free time in a pretty awesome place that has tons of great stuff to do for fun. Also, it might be important to make sure that the other people I’m working with are people that I wouldn’t mind, in fact, that’d I’d enjoy, spending a lot of time with both inside and outside of the hospital. It would be great to have attendings that are eager to teach, approachable, and enthusiastic about turning me into an outstanding EM physician.

A lot of programs had some of these criteria; not so many had all of these and more. Baystate is a busy ED, and that’s putting it lightly. You’ll never run out of patients to see, and you will never be limited to a certain demographic. You probably already know it’s a level 1 trauma center, and we are certainly not limited to only 1 type of injury, we get them both, frequently. We also have a dedicated Pediatric ED, and you get to work there all year, not just RSV season. So, about all that extra stuff I was talking about? 

It was my interview at Baystate that made me realize how important those aspects of a program are. This area is full of all kinds of awesome stuff to do, all year round. The outdoor activities are top notch. If you’re a foodie, we’ve got some great restaurants, and tons of local farms. If it’s city life you like, well then let’s not forget Boston is an hour away, and New York is only 2. All of that aside, it’s the people here that you will work with that I think make the biggest difference. The residents and attendings are an incredibly welcoming and fun group of people; excited and eager to teach and learn, approachable and helpful, and all around a great bunch to spend time with both in the ED and out. Oh, and one final thought, you will also want a great program coordinator; someone full of patience and understanding, and most of all a good sense of humor. We’ve got that too.