Maureen Kuhn, November 6, 2019 (video)
Item
-
Title
-
Maureen Kuhn, November 6, 2019 (video)
-
interviewee
-
Maureen Kuhn
-
interviewer
-
Jessica Goon
-
Date
-
2019-11-06
-
Subject
-
Nursing
-
General Practitioner
-
Medicine
-
Medical Technology
-
Helping People
-
Description
-
Maureen Kuhn is a general practitioner in Cherry Valley, New York. Kuhn was born in Mount Vernon, New York on April 16th, 1956. She became interested in medicine at an early age by taking care of her siblings. She wanted to do something with her life that allowed her to take care of people and help them with their health.
Kuhn has been working in the area for 37 years and is fond of working in a small community. Even though there have been changes to the medical field during her career, she still tries to emphasize the importance of listening to her patients and building real relationships with them. She also enjoys helping her patients adjust to diversity in the community. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community she was met with a lot of questions and concerns from conservative patients and she helped them adjust to something new. Kuhn is keenly aware of the changes that are happening to the medical field because of technological advances and new research. The improvements with surgery and record keeping come with their own new challenges and complicated relationships with drug and insurance companies.
Outside the office she enjoys a lot of activities that the area has to offer. Kuhn and her wife are both very active people and enjoy skiing and playing golf. They often spend time with friends dining at local restaurants and listening to music. They also enjoy traveling and have future aspirations to travel Europe and explore the United States more. They have already visited Ireland and Paris together, and have taken a Mediterranean cruise.
-
Transcription
-
MK = Maureen Kuhn
JG = Jessica Goon
[START VIDEO 1: 0:00]
JG:
This is an interview with Maureen Kuhn [MK] from Jessica Goon for the Cooperstown Graduate Program at her home in Cooperstown, New York. It is 9:00am on November 6th, 2019. Can you talk a little bit about your life in the area?
MK:
I came here in 1980 as a nurse practitioner, a couple years out of school and practice in the Boston area. I came here to work as a family nurse practitioner, part of a rural health network of three health centers. I came here having done a residency here a couple years before that. I really loved the area and loved the concept of nurse practitioners being a primary care provider of care in a community, a small community. I really enjoyed that. It was kind-of a dream job for me. I managed to find it pretty early in my life. It was kind-of cool.
JG:
Can you talk a little bit about being a nurse practitioner and general practitioner in the area?
MK:
It's been a real gift. I've been in the same community for 37 years. I've taken care of five generations of some families, four and three generations. I've watched kids grow up. I've watched them have their babies. I've watched them die. I've kind-of been part of that whole process for families. It's a great reward when you see folks growing up. I say, “You're not really ten years old, or you're not 30. You can't possibly be 80 now.” It's a real gift to have that kind-of relationship over a long period. It doesn't happen much anymore. People are not staying in communities very long. People tend to move around. for me, having been here 37 years, I've seen change, I've seen growth, I've seen economics change, healthcare change like we've talked about. It's been a real pleasure to grow the community health wise. We'll see what happens over the next few years that I have left.
JG:
What kinds of changes have you seen in the field?
MK:
There's been a lot of change in terms of technology. Before, we used to have a paper chart. Now, we have an electronic chart that kind-of keeps track of things a little better. Sometimes it's a little more overwhelming. Certainly surgeries have changed. We now do things laparoscopically and robotically. We have medications and treatments for things like HIV that we never had. We're curing cancer. Over 30, 40 years of watching medicine and science change there's been a lot of new developments. It's hard to keep up with some of that stuff which is why it's nice to have experts that I say I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. So, it's nice to be part of a community where we have some experts in the fields that we can rely on and guide people.
JG:
Thank you.
MK:
Oh great! My pleasure.
-
Coverage
-
Upstate New York
-
Cooperstown, NY
-
1956-2019
-
Creator
-
Jessica Goon
-
Publisher
-
Cooperstown Graduate Program, State University of New York College at Oneonta
-
Rights
-
Cooperstown Graduate Association, Cooperstown, NY
-
Format
-
movie/mpeg-4
-
91.2mB
-
Language
-
en-US
-
Type
-
Video: moving image
-
Identifier
-
19-09b
