For Dr. Alexander Turner, a little twist on his path to neurosurgery actually became a lucky break. After completing medical school at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, and a preliminary year in surgery in Las Vegas, he then went into the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP), a process where eligible residents who have not matched through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) secure a residency in unfilled programs. He got into an opening in the Valley Health System, just so he could stay in the realm of surgery.
But, as often happens in life, the cards fell another way, and eventually, Turner was accepted into the emergency medicine residency program at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. He is currently a second-year resident and thankful for the way the cards were dealt.
“I am just so fortunate, just because of the fact that this residency works out so well for my life and what I like to do,” says Turner. “More so than I would’ve imagined. So, it was kind of a lucky thing that happened to me.”
Lucky to go into emergency medicine? That might be hard for some to understand. But, Turner explains it plainly. “The things that I liked in surgery were more of the critical aspect of taking care of sick patients. Procedures that require, you know, more of an emergent type of action. I didn’t really realize it while I was doing my surgery year, but the things that I liked were more procedural based rather than operational based.”
Not only that, but he discovered that he could go home and just be home at the end of his day. Working emergency medicine is more of a “shift work style.” That would be much more difficult in a surgery residency. When he started in the emergency medicine residency, he had just gotten married, and now he also has a 5-month-old. “I love just being able to know what my schedule is going to be and being able to be home and truly be home.”
Even handling emergencies, Turner has expressed surprise at one thing during his residency at the school of medicine: how involved the residents get with the community.
“We do a lot of event medicine, so we work the EDC [Electric Daisy Carnival] and the Vegas Golden Knights hockey games ... it was definitely advertised as such, but the amount of involvement we have [in the community] was pretty surprising.”
What wasn’t surprising was the support of the graduate medical education (GME) office and the faculty and attendings. Turner shares, “Dr. Berkeley [Ross Berkeley, MD, professor, residency program director, and chair of emergency medicine], in particular, I think that he’s brilliant. He is very detailed, very thorough. He will teach you a bunch of things that you didn’t think of including ... medical legal aspects of things, in addition to disease processes that you might not have thought about.”
Turner continues, “And he always says, ‘Call me if you need anything. Email me if you need anything.’ And it’s true. He does mean that. He takes care of us very well.”
Likewise, GME and the school provide the use of “the gym facility” at the Kirk Kerkorian Medical Education Building (MEB), as well as “the building itself, to kind of sit and study and have a quiet place,” says Turner. “We have access to the library system online ... and our food stipend is fantastic.”
Still, working the emergency room at University Medical Center (UMC) has its constant set of challenges. Not every patient will have a good outcome. But, one lesson rises above all others for Turner in his second year of his residency. “Just treating everybody with respect and giving them some dignity and doing what’s right. That’s probably one of the main things that I’ve learned.”
Turner adds, “That and being conscious of the things that you order [i.e. tests] because you don’t necessarily need to order this gigantic workup on everybody and overburden, not only the hospital with doing things, but then the patient later with trying to pay for it.”
Beyond residency, Turner would like to stay right where he’s at, hopefully at UMC. “This is where I’m going to stay when I’m done with residency. I just love this state.”
