Faith Community Health System (FCHS) congratulates Dr. Shivum Agarwal on his 2021 Preceptor of the Year award! This award is selected by medical students for preceptors who teach the Family Medicine clerkship through The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. All students are required to do a family medicine rotation as part of their graduation requirements in their clinical years. There are several sites and locations in Texas to choose from ranging from Tyler, Waco, Dallas, Fort Worth, and others.
“We are very blessed to have Dr. Agarwal as a provider at FCHS contributing to a comprehensive array of services to our communities,” Frank L. Beaman, CEO of Faith Community Health System says. “Many rural communities across the state and country for that matter are severely underserved when it comes to healthcare. Fortunately, we have one of the best rural hospitals in the state due to a committed group of staff and providers like Dr. Agarwal. State-of-the-art care was top-of-mind when planning the new Faith Community Hospital, which opened in 2015.” Beaman says that the facility has come a long way over the years with the addition of new technology and physicians. Such an astounding honor for Dr. Agarwal and a true testament to his passion to teach others about family medicine.
Dr. Agarwal states, “I stand on the shoulders of dedicated mentors and teachers before me who taught with compassion and a commitment to science and humanity. It is because of great teachers as early as grade school that I am half the teacher that they were.”
“Some of my biggest motivators are my own students who are constantly challenging me to advance my own knowledge base and to look at the world of medicine from different angles. Students new to medicine have the unique advantage of seeing a patient with fresh eyes and a presenting ailment with a clean mental slate. This enhances our diagnostic accuracy as clinicians. Our medical students have advanced the quality of care at our hospital, enabling us to enhance our reach with more hands on deck and with the latest research and evidence.”
“I am grateful to the entire teaching attending faculty team here at Faith Community Health System including Drs. Crutcher, Cooper, Shepherd, Johnson, Santos, Dunn, Aujla, and McCaig who has mentored and taught our students. For example, Dr. Aujla has taken time out of retirement to meet with students and teach basic surgical skills. Phlebotomists have taught students to draw blood. Nurses have taught students the art of bedside care and compassion. Mr. Beaman has taken time out of his schedule to discuss rural hospital management with students. This award truly represents a team effort of physicians, nurses, phlebotomists, therapists, and administration, who have been supportive and focused on providing excellent, sustainable healthcare in the greater Jacksboro region by training future generations of physicians and nurses to come.”
“Our teaching partnership with UT Southwestern Department of Family and Community Medicine has been a wonderful relationship personally dating back over a decade for me when I first set foot at UT Southwestern as a first year medical student. However, back then I did not have the opportunity to rotate on a rural clerkship. I did, however, have a unique opportunity to experience medicine in a remote setting on a student-led aid trip to Haiti, which opened my eyes to the value of full spectrum Family Medicine. Much as I felt embraced by our community and my patients when I arrived in Jacksboro, I have enjoyed introducing students from Dallas to full spectrum rural medicine and surgery. I believe that students leave here with a newfound appreciation for rural healthcare, its challenges, the warmth of a small community, and the excellent cutting-edge care that can be delivered in a rural setting. I want students in medical school to be able to experience what it is like to be woven into the fabric of a community as a rural physician. Some of our students have been inspired and are now graduating from family medicine residency ready to embark on rural practices of their own. Even if they do not choose this path as a career, I am confident that developing an appreciation for care and continuity of patients in rural communities will benefit the care of their future patients.”
“Again, I thank the FCHS and UT Southwestern administration and my fellow attending physicians who have been supportive and excited to host medical students from the first day I set foot in Jacksboro. It has been an investment in the care of humanity for generations to come.”
