Outside the Beltway. Inside the future of emergency medicine.

When working parents make the decision to live “inside the Beltway” of Washington, they make certain choices in the name of modern amenities, a D.C. lifestyle, and convenience: Commutes mere miles can take an hour or more. Parenting offers unique challenges. And it’s really expensive.

But after a few years of more and bigger, Cameron Olderog and her husband wanted…less.

Both young and successful parents of three, Cameron (an emergency physician) and Chris (then an FBI agent) were also overworked and overloaded with professional duties and kids’ schedules. One salary was simply directed to all of the services they had to outsource: the nanny, the landscaper, the housekeeper.

So in 2017, the Olderogs left behind the Beltway and uprooted to a 1911 Victorian on 54 acres in Marshall, a countryside community just outside Warrenton. Now 50 miles southwest of D.C., the family is in the early years of building the regenerative Lionsrest Farm, where they maintain 24 grass-fed cattle, 200 free-range chickens, and woodland-raised pigs.

The farm offers Cameron and her family solitude from the hustle and bustle of Northern Virginia. It’s increased her commute time to either Inova’s Mount Vernon or Loudoun hospitals, if only by a little, but given her the ability to focus on what’s important: Family, friends, and precious time.

With her husband now a stay-at-home-dad and farmer, Cameron can also focus on providing patient care and, through VACEP, advocating for the future of emergency medicine across Virginia and at the federal level.

Cameron is President-Elect of the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians, and was part of the first class of the 2016-2017 VACEP Leadership & Advocacy Fellowship, a program designed to develop and groom future emergency medicine leaders with mentoring, organization, education, advocacy, and involvement.

The California native began her path to emergency medicine at UCLA — a school where half of incoming freshman are pre-med — knowing she wanted to be a doctor. Her first choice for med school, Georgetown University, accepted the straight-A student, and she enrolled debt-free (in exchange for seven years of military service) on a U.S. Army scholarship.

At the time, emergency medicine wasn’t a certainty. She considered OB/GYN, but during rounds, realized there wasn’t enough complexity to the cases for her. She preferred “the little bit of everything” emergency medicine offered. “I didn’t like being in a place like the ICU where we treat patients for months at a time trying to tweak numbers,” she says. “I just wanted to fix people and move on.”

The U.S. was deep in two wars at the time, and she knew emergency medicine in the Army could offer the best training possible. “Attending physicians had a lot of battlefield experience and could do a lot without a lot of resources,” she says.

She began emergency medicine rotations at the start of her fourth year in residency. “It’s what I was good at and what I enjoyed doing,” she says. “It offered the right balance of young kids, older people, procedures, and the ability to think about critically ill patients — and a lot of training in the trauma center.”

Leadership from the ARMY to ACEP 

Cameron also appreciated the level of leadership development the Army offers in addition to medical training. That kind of big-picture thinking – clinical expertise matched with medical leadership — helped her to understand the role of ACEP and its state chapters. She got involved in the Government Services Chapter of ACEP, formed in 1977 to give military physicians a chapter “home” to build networking and leadership opportunities that would be consistent despite frequent military moves. GSACEP represents the unique practice situations encountered by active duty, National Guard, and Reserve members, as well as physicians in federal service in the Veterans’ Administration, Indian Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, and Public Health Service.

“The Government Services chapter is where I saw how impactful leadership in medicine can be,” she says. “Leadership in medicine doesn’t just mean treating patients daily, but having the opportunity to make a difference on a bigger level.”

She specifically credits Linda Lawrence, MD, FACEP and past ACEP president, with encouraging her to get involved in medicine at the state and national level. When she left her residency in 2007, she became a flight surgeon and remained an ACEP Councilor, even making conference calls while on a six-month tour in Afghanistan.

While in-country, “I wanted to stay involved in the emergency medicine family and community. It’s a struggle when you’ve taken a new job and are figuring out your new role as an attending. But involvement in ACEP bridges the gap. I was doing administrative stuff that was very new to me and wasn’t necessarily focused on medicine. ACEP helped me keep focus on what I wanted to do long term and become a leader in emergency medicine.”

At home, on the farm

Outside her shifts and ACEP engagements, at their home at Lionsrest, Cameron and Chris are raising three children with space to run and play, and enjoy their still-new, less-scheduled and less-stressed lifestyle. “Every parent has a different idea of what success looks like,” Cameron says. “For us, this is how we wanted to raise our family.”

On their farm, the chickens and pigs provide naturally raised food for the family and friends; Lionsrest’s first beef cows will be ready for processing in fall 2020.

Longer term, the Olderogs hope to open a farm store and sell their foods direct to customers and local restaurants. But for now, it’s learning how to provide food of the highest quality, nutrition, and integrity. And this year “was the first time I’d ever tried to move a cow,” Cameron jokes (she grew up in the city).

How involvement can stop burnout

ACEP involvement, Cameron says, prevents burnout and the wear-and-tear that repeated patient cases can bring.

“When you see the same things every day on your shift, you feel like you’re not making a change in society. It’s easily to get jaded and feel like a cog in the wheel,” she says. “But for me, being involved with Virginia ACEP gives me an outlet to make a difference beyond one more drunk person or one more kid being abused or ordering tests you don’t think need to be ordered because doc upstairs wants them. Whatever it is that makes you feel like nothing you do matters, you can change your view when you get involved in a bigger level. Being involved in ACEP empowers you.”

“Sometimes the biggest challenges you face in a shift make you feel as if there’s nothing you can do about it,” she says. “But really there is. And that’s VACEP.”

Cameron Kaehler Olderog, M.D., FACEP is an emergency physician with Commonwealth Emergency Physicians. She is president-elect of the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians.