The Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine has sent the 2025 class of doctors of osteopathic medicine to begin their residencies and careers as physicians. One student, Rebekah Weeks, won’t have to go far — she’s already hard at work with her team in Northern Michigan.

During her clerkship years in medical school, Rebekah Weeks selected Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Mich., as her base hospital. For the past two years, she’s rotated through rural areas across Northern Michigan, including Indian River, Kalkaska, Lewiston and Cadillac. Through these rotations, she witnessed the service provided by family medicine physicians in rural areas, who support patients with a broad range of medical needs due to the lack of nearby specialists.

“I want to know everything. I want to understand and figure things out,” Weeks explained. “The range of disease and health, the opportunity to work across the lifespan – you get to do more of that working in a rural area.”

With strong interests in general practice and rural medicine, Weeks suspected Munson Medical Center, which serves many patients from surrounding rural areas, would be the perfect fit for her residency – and she was right.

“That’s exactly what I want from a residency because that’s what I see myself doing as a physician,” said Weeks, who has trained at Munson since July 2023. “In more urban areas, patients have more access to specialists, so those family medicine physicians often don’t see the same variety. In a rural setting, I’ll see variety, breadth and depth of health conditions.”

In June, Weeks will join Munson’s Family Medicine Resident Program. While supporting the program, she plans to continue developing her knowledge and skills in osteopathic manipulative medicine, which uses hands-on techniques to diagnose and treat a wide range of conditions. Weeks said one of the reasons she chose the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine for medical school was specifically to gain skills in OMM that she could use as a family medicine practitioner.

“OMM can be used in any specialty, but I think it’s easier in some specialties than others,” Weeks explained. “In Family Medicine, you see your patients more often and might have more of a built-in relationship with them. OMM is so useful for a lot of different scenarios, and I will get to see many of those in primary care.”

Weeks recalled a recent experience at an outpatient clinic with a patient who deals with chronic pain from a motor vehicle accident many years ago. After the physician used myofascial release and muscle energy technique during an OMM session, Weeks saw the patient’s facial expression lighten and posture straighten.

“At the end of it, the patient was able to sit up straight and walk out of the room without visible discomfort,” Weeks said. “They spent quite a bit of time thanking the provider.”

Weeks is also passionate about providing care to the LGBTQ+ community, and looks forward to supporting gender-affirming care, especially in rural areas where access can be difficult for patients.

“Hormone replacement therapy and other non-surgical forms of gender-affirming care are evidence-based medicine, which is totally doable in the primary care setting,” Weeks explained. “I’m excited to provide that, however small the population is.”

After she completes her residency at Munson, Week hopes to stay in Northern Michigan. As a National Health Service Corps scholar, she is committed to practicing family medicine in underserved areas. For her, Northern Michigan feels like home.

“It will depend on what’s available at the time, and I’ll have to interview for the job just like anyone else, but that’s what I’m doing,” Weeks said. “All the communities in Northern Michigan that I’ve already served, I would happily go to any of those places. I loved working with those groups. The patients are fantastic.”

Until then, Weeks is focused on commencement, after which she will eagerly reunite with her team at Munson to begin her residency and continue her journey as an osteopathic physician.

“I cannot say enough good things about the faculty and residents I’ve worked with at Munson – they’re fantastic,” Weeks said. “Every resident I interviewed with has told me it’s all about the people, and it is.

“These are my people.”

This story originally appeared on the College of Osteopathic Medicine website.