Iowa medical graduate returns to small-town roots
Taylor Hircock grew up in Adel, Iowa, a town of about 6,000 located just west of Des Moines. The community had one school and one doctor. Most residents knew each other.
Now, having graduated from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Hircock finds himself in similar—and ideal—circumstances, caring for people in another small town in the Hawkeye State.
“I loved the idea of being a small-town doctor, being able to take care of pretty much everyone, to know the people in the community,” says Hircock, a 2017 Carver alum who is a family medicine doctor at McFarland Clinic in Carroll, Iowa, a town of about 10,000 in west-central Iowa. “That was always what I pictured myself doing.”
After studying biology at the University of Northern Iowa, Hircock applied to Iowa and a handful of other medical schools. He chose Iowa in part due to its high ranking in primary care, its university hospital system, and its medical teaching record. It didn’t hurt that Hircock also grew up a Hawkeyes fan.
“Once I got my acceptance letter from Iowa, I didn’t care about any other place I might get into,” Hircock says. “I knew Iowa was where I wanted to go.”
“I loved the idea of being a small-town doctor, being able to take care of pretty much everyone, to know the people in the community,” says Taylor Hircock, who received a medical degree from the UI Carver College of Medicine in 2017. “That was always what I pictured myself doing.”
When Hircock was in his third year as a student, he had to choose his rotation—a rite of passage where for a period of time medical students shadow doctors and learn about clinical care in a particular setting. While many of his peers elected rotations within University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Hircock decided to pair up with McFarland Clinic, a regional medical center in Carroll that offers a wide spectrum of patient care.
His mentor—called a “preceptor” in medical circles—was Mike Slattery, a family medicine doctor at McFarland who earned his medical degree from Iowa in 1993.
For as many as 12 hours a day spanning his monthlong rotation, Hircock would accompany Slattery on his patient visits, from bedside rounds at the hospital to appointments at the clinic.
Hircock did more than simply watch Slattery in action. “Dr. Slattery would send me into a patient’s room and have me come back and give him a 30-second summary of what’s going on, and what I thought we should do about it,” Hircock recalls. “I also got to help with a delivery. I really got a feel for what it would mean to be a doctor in a small town and how to connect with patients.
“Plus, one of the patients brought Dr. Slattery some venison as a thank you, and two weeks later that same patient brought some for me,” he adds with a smile.
Slattery, who has practiced in Carroll for 25 years, saw Hircock’s potential.
“He was a star student when he rotated here with me,” Slattery recalls. “His differential was exceptional. There were very few things that he didn’t have the foundation to answer or go after as a physician. The other thing is there are very few students whom I let write orders for admission. Taylor was one of them.”
“It may be sort of a romanticized notion, but I could take care of somebody and then see them in church next week, or take care of a child and see them at a football game. To be connected in that way to the community, not only as a person but through my profession, was appealing to me.”
Before he took on the rotation, Hircock was vacillating between working in internal medicine in a hospital setting or being a family medicine doctor in a small town.
“I had seen the academic medical center, but when I got back out in the rural community and saw this picture of medicine that I had always envisioned, I was completely sold on family medicine from that time forward,” Hircock says.
The partners at McFarland Clinic were equally smitten with Hircock. Shortly after Hircock’s rotation ended, Slattery’s partners urged him to contact the promising young physician.
“I remember we were in that meeting and my partners said, ‘Let’s reach out to him,’” Slattery says. “So, I reached out to him through a text during the meeting and within 10 minutes he called back, and he said, ‘I always thought of Carroll as an ideal place to practice and do full scope family medicine.’ The next thing we knew, we had him.”
Hircock’s typical day is full of variety: Most mornings, he sees patients at St. Anthony Regional Hospital, reviewing their lab reports, checking their vitals, and adjusting their care regimen if needed. Then he heads to the clinic, where a host of new patients with new conditions or symptoms await. He also delivers babies, and is on call every fifth weekend.
“It may be sort of a romanticized notion, but I could take care of somebody and then see them in church next week, or take care of a child and see them at a football game. To be connected in that way to the community, not only as a person but through my profession, was appealing to me,” Hircock says.
A little more than a year out of Iowa and now a full-time practicing physician, Hircock couldn’t be happier about his station in life.
“People talk about a five- or ten-year career plan—I am already living it,” he says. “My career goals are to be what I am now.”
