On her assignments, Dr. Samantha Conroy, a family practice obstetrician, family practitioner, and urgent care physician, traveled to clinics in some of the satellite villages to help care for patients who couldn’t make it into Utqiagvik — flying there and back in a small plane. She says being a locums in that part of the world requires flexibility and the ability to multitask. “They don’t have as much ability to diagnose things in those locations,” she says. “It’s pretty limited, and I think it’s hardest when you have emergencies or patients who are having pregnancy-related issues. It’s pretty difficult to manage those kinds of things over the phone. We do end up flying a lot of the patients back and forth just to be seen in Utqiagvik or in Anchorage.” Dr. Conroy was also impressed with how the facility managed those patients needing additional care. “The facility has quite a good system to deal with emergencies. They have their airplane that will come. It’s on standby to get the patients and take them wherever they need to go. It’s pretty impressive. They seem to really be able to make it work.”