RUMFORD — Rumford Hospital has welcomed two new residents to the Rumford Hospital residency program of the Central Maine Medical Center Rural Track Residency  Program. In the three-year Rural Track, residents who are recent medical school graduates spend their first year in Lewiston with their class, but during their second and third years they have the opportunity to learn what it is like to practice in a rural community instead of the large, urban hospitals they have become accustomed to.

Harpreet Ghotra, MD, and Petrona Manasseh, MD, both heard about the Rumford program from the residents who preceded them. In particular, they had heard the Rural Track praised for its strong training in outpatient medicine. Residents have opportunities to see patients at the family medicine practice, when shadowing specialists in the specialty clinics and with board certified physicians in the Emergency Department. They may assist one of the two OB/GYN physicians in the office or the operating room.

Ghotra will begin his work and training in Rumford in August after he and his wife welcome their first child this summer. His wife is Canadian and will work as a relief veterinarian when she returns to work following maternity leave. Ghotra was born and raised in rural northern India, so the River Valley seems a natural fit. In his spare time he enjoys sports, particularly soccer and hiking. He is a graduate of Medical College in Amritsar, India.

Manasseh was born in Toronto, but her family migrated to Jamaica when she was 7. Her husband of four years is a Jamaican and a chemical processing engineer who also has a Masters in Business Administration. Her strong belief in God and her love of people is a perfect marriage with her desire to practice medicine, she said, and also noted that “this type of training will allow me to be flexible.” She has already begun seeing patients. Manasseh obtained her medical degree from the University of Sint Eustatius, in the Netherlands Antilles.

Third-year residents Drs. Lisa McAllister and Jeffrey Lynds joined Rumford Hospital and Swift River Family Medicine in the summer of 2009. During this, their second year in the Rural Track program and final year of residency, McAllister will assume the duties of head resident. Residents Jennifer Dressel and Michael Gravatt II, having completed all three years of their residencies, will move on to practice medicine in small towns; Dressel in Massachussetts and Gravatt in Washington. Their patients will be cared for by McAllister, Lynds and the new residents.