Stronger together: Austen Ott, rural medicine and the power of community
Aug. 13, 2025, Matt LaMar — Austen Ott, newly-minted MD, had a big weekend—and a big summer. They graduated from medical school in May and then started residency in June. They spoke to a packed ballroom at the Kansas City Convention Center during the biggest single session of FUTURE 2025. They participated in a variety of events in their role as student chair of the conference.
Throughout FUTURE, Ott was professional and eloquent. But they were momentarily stumped when asked to discuss a broader, open-ended query that only they had the answer for: What are you passionate about as a family doc?
“That’s a good question,” Ott said, pausing. “So many things.”
Ott, as many family physicians are, is passionate about more than one thing. But their initial response echoed what they had repeatedly brought up over a dozen times in their interview with AAFP News: a focus on community. “I am really passionate about increasing access to care in communities that oftentimes don't have care,” Ott said. “Part of the reason that I was very excited to go to the residency that I'm at, I feel that we are, as a health care organization and as a residency, really focused on bringing care to patients who might not have other places to go.”
Ott matched with Contro Costa Family Medicine Residency in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. While “Bay Area” may conjure images of tech professionals, skyscrapers and packed trolley cars, the Martinez, California, residency program serves a much more rural and agricultural patient base and has a high percentage of non-English speakers.
Rural medicine is a core part of why Ott is in family medicine at all. “I grew up on a farm in Indiana,” Ott said. “That experience in a more isolated community with fewer resources was one that kind of opened my eyes to a lack of health care in smaller and more rural places.”
That interest in rural health care led to Ott’s decision to go to the University of Minnesota, a strong primary care school that places a large portion of graduates into family medicine every year. While in med school, Ott participated in a longitudinal integrated clerkship where they spent their entire third year of coursework embedded in a rural hospital.
While there are certainly challenges with rural medicine, Ott speaks brightly about the impact of rural medicine—where community again is a focus. “When you work in a rural community, you really get to know your patients, you really get to know your coworkers,” they said. “The number of staff at the hospital is just so much smaller than if you are at a big ivory tower.
“And for patients, I think that really improves the care that they're getting. They know who you are, they see you at community events, they see you doing things that are supporting the community outside of the office, and then when they get there, they already know that there's things that you've been doing that they can lean on in order to build trust with you in that relationship as a patient and a doctor.”
Ott has only spent a few weeks in the newest stage of their career, but perhaps somewhat paradoxically, they realized that there is only so much one can do on their own in a rural setting with its unique challenges. Insurance issues are present throughout the United States, but a rural medical setting layers other difficulties like a lack of public transit and a lack of nearby pharmacies that get in the way of ideal treatment.
“I went into starting clinic kind of thinking, OK, I have to learn all of these different things,” Austen said about non-medical services like social work and case management. “I need to know how to get my patients all of these resources so that we can get them the care that they need. But that I have quickly learned, that's not the right way to approach it. And it's really about partnering with the people who are the experts in the resources in the community.”
Ott knows that leaning on others when necessary is important and has a good humor about it. “If anyone wants to be my friend who's a hyper specialist, let me know,” they quipped. “Because I’m going to need that pool of resources in the future.” But also, Ott knows that family physicians have a huge reach and can positively impact so many—including obstetric health and those in the LGBTQIA community, both of whom Ott brought up when discussing their passions.
And while Ott’s future may be mostly in front of them, they feel confident about the direction they’re going. “Training in that environment where I’m partnering with folks who have so much to teach me,” Ott said.
“But also, we have such an opportunity to assist in people getting care, which I think is something that I want to do in my career.”