Rachel Sonne, MD: Trading Urban Life for Rural Practice
Rachel Sonne, MD grew up in San Diego, California, a city of 1.3 million residents in a county of over 3.3 million. It’s nothing short of a miracle that she ended up practicing medicine in Goldendale, Washington with a population of 3,473 people. Her journey spanned seven states across the country before she found her home, deciding that the southeast corner of Washington was her favorite place to be. And she didn’t come to this conclusion lightly. She created a master spreadsheet to carefully weigh her options, considering everything she could think of—community size, climate, school systems, and even clinic mission statements. Goldendale was the place that checked all the boxes. “I was really interested in a manageable, tangible, independent, system where the outpatient primary care depended on the inpatient operations and vice versa,” she explains.
Rachel’s interest in healthcare began early. As a teenager, she managed a Petco Vet Wellness Clinic, sparking a love of medicine and exposing her to life beyond the bustling city. She says, “I was curious about land and animals and space. I didn't really know what [space] was away from the ocean.” And once she saw the open fields and sparce mountain ranges, she was drawn to them. She recalls, “It didn't occur to me that there was that much land in America where there weren't people.” Her undergraduate years took her to Philadelphia, an even larger city, but when she moved to Connecticut afterward to a town of 50,000, she was shocked by the breath of fresh air she found in rural life.
The rural medical training programs that Rachel participated in as a student at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) deepened her commitment to rural healthcare. Rotations in NEOAHEC’s region, including Enterprise, Grants Pass, Ontario, and John Day, reaffirmed her sense of belonging in small towns. She reflects, “I'd never really lived a rural experience…I wanted to get out of the city as much as I could and explore who I was in a rural community and to explore all the rural communities that I could.” Her favorite rotation was in John Day because it was the longest—she was able to spend three months there.
This was due to the tireless efforts of Dr. Lisa Dodson, the then Oregon AHEC Director and Clerkship Director of the Oregon Rural Scholars Program. Rachel remembers, “She was just a master at pulling funding for purpose.” The program combined the shorter, required rotations of her program into a single, immersive placement. Rachel explains, “Clerkships are five weeks long. And for experiential connection and community relationships, five weeks isn't enough…. It takes weeks to get a taste of it, and that's about it.” Rachel found her John Day rotation to be one of the most important
pieces of her decision to go into rural healthcare—she was able to really get to know the community of John Day. And the program was more than just a long rotation. Rachel was part of a cohort of students who were empowered by AHEC to enact change in their communities. She explained, “We took every curricular opportunity, legislative opportunity, research opportunity, you name it. We were able to focus on rural communities, rural populations, and rural needs.”
Now fully established in Goldendale, Rachel embraces her small-town life. She says, “San Diego is a beautiful, beautiful place to be. And it was a great place to grow up. I don't miss living there.” She specifically called out the traffic as something she didn’t miss. In her new life, she finds herself happiest when she’s able to get out into nature—to just explore all the space. While she and her husband enjoy a wide variety of outdoor activities—trail running, mountain biking, paddle boarding, and kayaking—her two little boys are more into trail walking.
NEOAHEC’s programs, like the now-discontinued Oregon Rural Scholars Program, have proven vital in helping participants envision rural life. Rachel worries about the impact of the program having been replaced. If there are no extended rural rotations and everyone from a small town has no choice but to move to a metropolis for their education, she fears there will be no one left. She says, “Once they’ve seen the bright lights and the fancy shows and the restaurants, how do you lure them back?” Positive rural experiences during training, she believes, are key—not only to encouraging rural students to return but also to inspiring urban students to choose rural life. Rachel is living proof that this exposure can inspire people to give up their city life for a rural one, even one 400 times smaller.