Skip to content

Small Town Is Perfect Fit For New Doctor

Dr. Dominika Jegen

By David Howell

Editor


WATER VALLEY – When Dr. Dominika Jegen and her husband, James Jegen moved to Water Valley last month they already had an inkling of what small-town living would be like in rural Mississippi.

When they got here it was better than they envisioned.

“We expected it to be nice and charming and welcoming. That is how we felt when we came here for the interview,” Dr. Jegen said about their first visit to Water Valley back in January. They had traveled from their home country, Canada, for the interview with Yalobusha Health Service (YHS).

“Everybody was so nice to us and so welcoming and polite, not just to us, but to each other,” Dr. Jegen explained.

Within two weeks of that first interview, she accepted the physician position at YHS in what would be a drastic change from their last four years in Canada. During the last year she practiced in the most northern areas of Canada including Northwest Territory and Nunavut, where part of her work was above the Arctic Circle. She was often gone for weeks at a time and away from James. They were ready for something different and before settling on Water Valley they looked all over the world.

“I looked for jobs in the United Arab Emirates, in Ireland and even Antarctica,” Dr. Jegen explained. “We ended up getting a lot of offers from the states, especially Alaska, Michigan, Wisconsin and Montana but none of it was really exciting to us. I wanted an adventure and somewhere preferably warm.”

 It was almost a year ago when she first saw a position for a doctor in a small Mississippi town.

“This one we actually said, wait a second, we should maybe look into this,” she recalled. After speaking with YHS Administrator Terry Varner the couple made their first visit at the end of January.

“We loved it right away,” Dr. Jegen said.

While the job offer was the primary reason for coming to Water Valley, they were very interested in the life they could have here.

“We have been charmed beyond belief. People are very polite, I love my job,” Dr. Jegen said.  

“It’s amazing how friendly people are, even though they don’t have a clue who we are, they are waving at us, everybody waves at everybody. They all say good morning or good evening,” James Jegen agreed.

This was a drastic change from living in Toronto, a city of four million people, where friendly exchanges were not very common.

The work environment is also a big change for Dr. Jegen, working at Odom Rural Health Clinic, at the hospital and nursing home and at Mississippi State Veterans Home in Oxford, as part of the YHS physician team.

“All of the physicians here do the same things,” she explained about working for the local hospital.

In her last position she was the only doctor in the whole region, almost 15,000 square miles. She was basically the emergency physician for everything, working with limited resources in an atmosphere where everything was dependent on the weather including medevac flights.

“I was trying to make as much good as I could with very limited things,” Dr. Jegen noted about the challenging work conditions.

But with the steady flow of patients since she started on October 1, she discovered there were many similarities.

“When I worked up north in the native and aboriginal communities and Inuit communities, the health challenges were very, very similar to this. I was very comfortable coming here. The main concerns I saw up north were obesity, alcohol use, smoking, hypertension and diabetes,” she explained.

“When I see my patients here, the only difference, the patients are more polite.

Healthcare In The States

There is huge difference comparing the two counties, the private pay insurance system in the U.S. compared to the single-pay, government-run health care system in Canada.

“It’s fascinating in a different way than I thought it would be. Everything here is based on insurance and not just insurance, but which insurance (provider). For me that is a completely foreign concept because in Canada there is one payer, just the government,” Jegen explained. This means all citizens in Canada have healthcare and she never worried about the treatment being covered.

“If you need a CT or an ultrasound, or an admission or a transfer, there are no questions. I get to order that and because I am a physician, it is assumed I am making the right decision and people don’t question that at all,” she noted.

But the government-run system also has challenges, primarily a lengthy waiting list for everything. 

“The wait list for an MRI could be three to six months. It may take three or four days to get a bed for a hospital admission,” Dr. Jegen said. “But there is never a question of who is paying.”

Citing an example, she reports the wait list for a hip replacement can be two years to see the surgeon and another six months to get the surgery.

“There are pros and cons for both systems,” she added. Sometimes I really wish I had the Canadian system because I can do what I think is medically appropriate.

But here I get a lot of those tests and specialists much quicker, so that is better for patients,” she continued.

She pointed to an example, citing an elderly patient may have experienced multiple falls, feels weak and is unsteady on his or her feet and needs to be admitted to the hospital.

“When I admit them, the insurance doesn’t want to pay for it. Unless I can prove that there is some sort of infection, nobody wants to pay for the treatment,” Dr. Jegen said.

By comparison in Canada, there is no problem getting an elderly patient admitted, but a shortage of hospital beds can make it difficult to get them in a room. A patient may stay in the hallway of the emergency room for several days before moving to a room.

The cost of health care is also an issue.


“In Canada, not everything is free as some people think. Taxes are very high to pay for this and you don’t get what you want right away,” she explained.

 

Moving To The South

 

“Not in this particular order, but the best things have been the food, how people have been so polite and the actual geography, it is really beautiful,” Dr. Jegen said about the move.

Her favorite restaurant in town is the Crawdad Hole.

“I love the shrimp, I never even cared for the shrimp before. Now I can’t get enough,” Dr. Jegen said. Ribs, pulled pork and seafood is also high on the couple’s list as they have enjoyed local eateries and other restaurants during weekend trips to Biloxi, Little Rock and neighboring towns.

Initially they thought they would live in Oxford, citing the larger town as appealing, but when they landed on Wood Street in a rental house that all changed.

“We figured we would rent here for now. But we fell in love with their neighborhood and our neighbors, more importantly. We really like the fact that we can walk at night and stop at each porch and chat a bit. Plus our neighbors stop and come to our house. It is fabulous, something that is really foreign to us. We have always wanted this but have never found it until now,” Dr. Jegen continued. 

When they learned from neighbors about a house on Wood Street for sale from the neighbors they decided to take a look.

“We went to see it, and I absolutely knew from the moment we walked in it was the right one for us.  It is stunning and we can’t stop talking about it,” she said.

“It is our first house, we have always owned condos,” James Jegen said as they explained owning a house is a big deal because back in Toronto it is completely unattainable financially.

“It is a whole new concept to say we have a backyard, we can have a pool, we can let our dog run around outside and have parties. It is a whole new life. It is exactly what we want,” Dr. Jegen explained.

They already have a Thanksgiving invitation at a friend’s place in the neighborhood and even bigger plans for Christmas.

“My family is coming for Christmas. Normally my parents are a little hesitant to travel in the winter, but we have been so excited about being here and this new house, we want them to experience what we have been experiencing,” Dr. Jegen said. 


About Dr. Dominika Jegen

Dr. Dominika Jegen was born in Poland and her family moved to Germany as refugees from communism. They moved again, this time when she was six, to Canada as refugees. Her parents worked long hours so that she and her two siblings could go to school and have a good life.

“There was instilled in me the importance of studying and working hard,” Dr. Jegen explained.

She finished medical school at the University of Calgary, located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which is where she grew up. She met James Jegen in Calgary and they were married in 2008.

Dr. Jegen also attended Queen’s University in Ontario, where she did her rural family medicine residency. After that she worked at Moose Factory Island for three years, serving patients in a remote area of her country in Canada. Her last year in Canada was spent in the most northern areas of Canada including Northwest Territory and Nunavut, where part of her work was above the Arctic Circle.

Leave a Comment