Oles in the News: St. Olaf rural health program featured on ‘Minnesota Public Radio’
This year, St. Olaf College launched an initiative to help address the shortage of emergency responders in rural areas. Featured on Minnesota Public Radio, the Rural Health Care Initiative at St. Olaf creates opportunities for students to work alongside local EMTs in rural communities surrounding the college.
Alum Jane Spading ‘25 told MPR, “We would have to drive to Mayo, or you would drive up to Hennepin in Minneapolis, so you would often have more time with the patient. I got to practice a lot of the soft skills and empathy and learn how to communicate with a variety of different people.” Spading currently works as an EMT in North Carolina and is preparing to take the MCAT in hopes of applying to medical school.
This program is made possible through a community -college partnership aimed at filling a need within the Northfield and Cannon Falls communities. Rural areas nationwide are currently facing a shortage of ambulance workers and first responders.
Director of the Health Professions Committee and Professor of Biology Kevin Crisp spoke on the importance of these community partnerships for the student experience.
“We have so many students on campus who really need to get that hands-on patient care and service experience, and we are far enough from the cities, that we’re sort of right on the precipice of a very large rural community, a lot of which is underserved,” he explained. “It just seemed like the perfect ingredients, the perfect combination.”
Miles Greenberg ‘26, who is also a member of the St. Olaf EMT Club on campus and has ambitions to attend medical school, said getting to work with full-time professional EMTs has been invaluable.
“They’re all so knowledgeable,” he shared. “On our way back from the [ambulance] call, I love kind of asking questions about, you know, what was going on here? What was your thought process during the intervention? Is there anything I could have done differently?”
Listen to the story on Minnesota Public Radio’s website. You can also read the St. Olaf Magazine story, “Health Care in the Heartland,” online.