Education As A Means To Better Health Care

Trachtenberg, Champlain Valley AHEC work to strengthen health care in rural areas
By Jedd Kettler, County Courier
(Reprinted by permission)

ST. ALBANS - Robert Trachtenberg probably wants your child to become a doctor even more than you do.

Steering people - young and old - toward careers in health care is just one part of Trachtenberg's work as the executive director of the Champlain Valley Area Health Education Center (CVAHEC). Trachtenberg and five other staff members work to improve access to quality health care in rural areas "by supporting the recruitment, retention and continuing education of health care professionals." Trachtenberg has a background in education and his excitement is palpable when he discusses programs aimed squarely at young students - and future health care providers.

One of these programs, Med-Quest, is aimed at encouraging motivated students to pursue careers in medicine. The week-long camp for 9th and 10th grade students, gives students a chance to "shadow" working doctors and see a real emergency room in action.

"They get to see what it's like to work with a provider," said Trachtenberg. "It's a great opportunity for high-performing kids." The response from students is exciting, he said. "It's amazing," Trachtenberg said. "They work very hard." At the end of the program Trachtenberg gets an opportunity to talk with the students who took part in the program. "Everyone knew what they wanted to do," he said. "Kids are really excited about it. They have some solid plans."

The center also helps coordinate programs for adult learners interested in moving to careers in health care.

The connection between education and medicine has been a common thread through Trachtenberg's career. " Always having an interest in health and education, this is a perfect match," he said referring to the work at CVAHEC. For Trachtenberg, having a positive impact on the place he lives is also important. "I feel compelled to provide some sort of service in the world," he said.

After graduating from University of Wisconsin Madison with a psychology degree, Trachtenberg assisted with some neuro-psychology testing at Harvard Medical School. From there he moved on to teaching at The Landmark School, a secondary residential school for high-potential students with learning disabilities. His work at this school, from 1989 to 1991, gave him a solid grounding in education, and in the amount of work involved.

"That was like boot camp," he recalled. Working as much as 80-hour work weeks, Trachtenberg coached cross-country in addition to teaching. It was also at this school that he met his future wife, Catherine, another member of the school's staff.

In 1992 he began graduate study at Boston University. The following year Trachtenberg moved to Vermont and married Catherine. Trachtenberg found work running a program for parents of children in the Head Start program in Chittenden County.

In 1996 he became the Regional Director for Vermont Adult Learning in Chittenden County. All the while he continued work on his masters degree at St. Michael's College, finishing up in 1999. He and Catherine now have two children, Sam, who is two-and-a-half, and Carsen, who is just five weeks old.

Three years ago Trachtenberg began at the St. Albans AHEC. He said that this work is more rewarding in many ways than it might be in a more urban setting.

"You can actually get things done," he said. "I can go talk to the CEO of the hospital whenever I want. I could never have done that in (Boston)."

With its office in St. Albans, the five-year-old center serves Franklin, Grand Isle, Addison and Chittenden counties. The CVAHEC, affiliated with the University of Vermont, is one of three AHECs in Vermont, said Trachtenberg. The federally funded AHEC program began in the south in early 1970s to improve access to quality health care in rural, under-served areas.

"Especially in rural areas. That's really the roots," Trachtenberg said. There are now AHECs in more than 43 states, affiliated with more than 60 medical schools around the country. In Vermont there are also AHECs based in St. Johnsbury and Springfield, he said.

Each AHEC partners with community health and primary care providers, assisting in continuing education for providers and generally trying "increase the number of people working in health care in rural areas," said Trachtenberg.

This is a common goal to all AHECs, but each goes about achieving their mission in ways tailored to their areas. They all share the same initials, but, with each being a separate not-for-profit organization with a separate board of directors, they are quite independent of one another, he said.

"The standard quote is, 'If you've seen one AHEC, you've seen one AHEC,'" Trachtenberg said.

One way that AHECs in Vermont can help keep health care professionals in rural areas is through administering a loan repayment program funded by the Vermont legislature. Providers are eligible for loan reductions provided they make a commitment to stay in the area for at least one year, he said. "The intent is they ... become integral to the community and they stay," Trachtenberg said.

CVAHEC often works as a conduit between health care groups and providers in this way, and its valuable role could be easily overlooked by a casual observer. Among many other things, they run the library at Northwestern Medical Center, and help get accurate health care information to newly arrived refugees in the Champlain Valley area.

"We're kind of a behind-the-scenes organization," he said. The series of brochures AHEC maintains at NMC is published in Russian, Vietnamese and French, he said, and is meant to help new immigrants adapt to life and health care in Vermont.

CVAHEC has also been partnering with the Vermont Department of Health and the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program to help recently arrived Somali refugees, he said.

"Many of these people have lived many, many years in a refugee camp," he said. The adjustment to new living conditions and new health care issues is made a little easier through the work of CVAHEC.

The wide range of work that the center does has only increased its scope in recent years. The office has doubled its staff in the past three years, increased its working budget by 100 percent, said Trachtenberg.

To find out more about what CVAHEC does in the region, visit their website at www.cvahec.org or stop in to their 152 Fairfield Street office in St. Albans.