Liliana Marquez | For The Imperial Republican
Timothy Kaftan has begun a two-month rotation at Chase County Community Hospital and Clinic. He’s a third-year medical student at UNMC.
Med student begins rotation at hospital, clinic
Chase County is welcoming medical student Timothy Kaftan from Omaha.
Kaftan arrived May 31 to complete his family medicine rotation in Imperial for two months.
Born and raised in Omaha, Kaftan attended Creighton Preparatory High School and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a biology major.
One of Kaftan’s older brothers and father are also doctors.
He has just begun his third year at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, leaving him with two years left of medical school and then moving on to residency.
“Medical school is four years that everyone does pretty much the same training, but you can gear your education towards a specific specialty. Around our third and fourth year we start deciding what specialty we want to pursue,” he explained.
“After medical school then we specialize and we do residency,” he said.
Although he is not specializing in anything yet, Kaftan said he would like to pursue something surgical, or procedural, and he also really likes ophthalmology.
In his first week, he has been shadowing Dr. David Younger and at the same time has been practicing.
“I see patients that Dr. Younger or one of the attendings has, and I do basically what they would do, sometimes they watch me, sometimes I go in by myself,” Kaftan said.
“Then I kind of make an assessment of what symptoms they’re having, and I make a plan on how to treat those symptoms, like a diagnosis.”
Kaftan explained that he is basically a doctor in practice.
He is able to follow surgery about once a week with trauma surgeon Dr. Davis and helps with ER patients if the clinic is not busy.
Kaftan said that the staff has been very helpful and lets him practice what he is interested in.
“I’d like to say thank-you to everyone in Imperial for welcoming me. It’s been really nice,” he said.
“The patients have all been very welcoming and kind in letting a medical student, who is not as proficient in medicine as Dr. Younger, but they still let me practice. I really appreciate the practice,” he said.