Student Groups
Medical Associations
American Medical Association (AMA)
Leaders: Monica Kaitz, MD'11, John Shuck, MD'11, Samir Trehan, MD'11
Treasurer: Monica Kaitz
Description: The AMA-MSS is dedicated to representing medical students, improving medical education, developing Leadership, and promoting activism for the health of America. The AMA-MSS will pursue being: the leading medical student organization for advancing issues of public wellness, community service, ethics, and health policy; the principal source for obtaining and disseminating information for medical students regarding medical education, residency training, and medical practice; the most representative voice and influential advocate for medical students and their patients; and a dynamic organization that provides value to its medical student members.
American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
Leaders: Lauren Goddard; Krista Hachey
Treasurer: Heidi Wilder
Description: AMSA's goals are: improving health and healthcare delivery to all people, improving medical education, assisting in the understanding of world health problems, contributing to the welfare of physicians, physicians in training, and medical students, advancing the profession of medicine. At Brown, AMSA brings issues in healthcare and medical education to the forefront so that medical students can be involved in discussion and activism activities.
Student National Medical Association (SNMA)
Leaders: Marshala Lee; Portia Thurmond; Almaz Dessie; Wilbur Allen
Treasurer:
Description: We have a three-fold purpose:
1) support (socially, academically, instrumentally, etc.) current students from underrepresented minority groups;
2) increase the admission and retention of underrepresented minorities in health professions generally and medical school specifically;
3) work to eliminate health disparities in communities of color
Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association (APAMSA)
Leaders: Sarah Lee; Peter Than
Treasurer: Steve Lee
Description:
1. To explore and resolve the unique challenges, obstacles, and responsibilities specific to Asian Pacific American medical students and physicians;
2. To promote research on and dissemination of data on Asian Pacific American issues in medical education, post-graduate training, and appropriate health services;
3. To create a network of Asian Pacific Americans in health care across the country;
4. To provide national Leadership in the promulgation of legislative policies for the provision of enhanced access to ethnically and linguistically appropriate health services for Asian Pacific Americans; and
5. To provide opportunities for Asian Pacific American medical students to "give back" to their communities through service.
Student Health Council (SHC)
Leaders: Sarah Wakeman; Joanna MacLean
Treasurer: Ross Martini
Description: The Student Health Council (SHC) offers peer counseling, provides advocacy services for students, sponsors activities to make medical school a healthier environment, and most importantly, connects students with resources to address the challenges they face. The council is affiliated with the Rhode Island Medical Society, an organization that provides similar services for physicians in practice.
Medical Specialty Interest Groups
Aging Interest Group
Leaders: Heidi Wilder and Carly Seidman
Treasurer:
Description: The goal of the Aging Interest Group (AIG) is to expose it's members and the broader Brown community to topics in aging necessary for the care of older patients. These events will also provide opportunities to network with researchers and clinicians, taking full advantage of the excellence in aging scholarship that is taking place within the institution.
Emergency Medicine Interest Group
Leaders: Monica Kaitz; Ben Schnapp; Peter Chai
Treasurer: Ben Schnapp
Description: The purpose of EMIG is to promote interest in Emergency Medicine amongst medical students through exposure to the skills, department, practitioners and general field of ER. A larger related goal is to help prepare future doctors to handle emergencies through training programs and simulations, in cooperation with other interest groups.
Internal Medicine Interest Group (IMIG)
Leaders: Terence Sio. Jennifer Gao
Treasurer:
Description: To promote academic and career interest in the field of Internal Medicine among Brown Medical students throughout all years.
Neurology Interest Group
Leaders:
Treasurer: Andrew Brunner
Description: Promote the field of neurology and opportunities for students to be exposed to neurology during the preclinical years.
OBGYN Interest Group
Leader: Lindsay Kuroki, Courtney Olson
Treasurer:
Description: The OBGYN interest group is dedicated to expanding preclinical opportunities for those students interested in women's health issues. Our goal is to stimulate interest in the field and to provide students with resources, mentors and exposure to further explore various career opportunities within OBGYN, including Reproductive Endocrinology, Gynecologic Oncology, Urogynecology, Family Planning, Maternal Fetal Medicine, and Clinical Research. We sponsor the annual Deliver-a-Baby week at Women & Infants' Hospital, where 1st and 2nd year medical students spend time on the labor and delivery floor. We also provide mentoring opportunities as well as lecture series centered on women's health.
Pediatric Interest Group
Leaders: Sienna Vorono; Ala Kreczko; Adam Vasconcellos
Treasurer: Alicja Kreczko
Description: The Pediatric Interest Group's aims are 1) to create a platform for the sharing of ideas and support of students' own pediatric-related pursuits; 2) to increase awareness of the various career paths related to pediatrics; and 3) to promote child advocacy.
Society for Advancement of Pathology (SAP)
Leaders: Anthony Okobi; Difu Wu
Treasurer: Difu Wu
Description: To expose students to the various opportunities available in a career in Pathology, to promote the Technological Advancement within the field of Pathology, and to generate interest in Pathology among Brown Medical Students.
Psychiatry Interest Group
Leaders: Cyrena Gawuga; Xioajue Hu
Treasurer: Cyrena Gawuga; Xioajue Hu
Description: To increase medical student awareness of Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry by exposing 1st & 2nd year students to the field of psychiatry. We hope to do this by providing opportunities for students to meet upper years planning on entering psychiatry, current residents in psychiatry, Brown psychiatry faculty, and faculty/residents/students countrywide via regional and national conferences. We hope to expose students to the broad range of career possibilities in the mental health field, not limited to but including primary care, consult-liason, special populations (adolescents, HIV pts, immigrants, LGBT, etc), research, neuropsych, CAM in psych.
Radiology Interest Group
Leaders: Jane Suh
Treasurer: Jane Suh
Description: The Radiology Interest Group is for all students interested in radiology as a field and a career choice.
Surgery Interest Group
Leaders: Dan Cho, MD'11, Samir Trehan, MD'11
Treasurer: Chintan Patel
Description: The goal of the Surgical Interest Group (SIG) is to: 1) expose members to the skills necessary from a technical point of view to care for surgical patients, which will aid in their 3rd year rotations and electives in surgery; 2) develop an appreciation for research and become adult learners, to critically evaluate literature, and understand research design in such a manner that they will be able to critically evaluate the advances in surgical science and technology; this will influence their clinical practice regardless of their future medical specialty; 3) network with scientists, researchers, and surgeons in a variety of fields and specialties; 4) (most important) have fun!
Medical Service Groups
The Adolescent Leadership Council (TALC)
Leaders: Joelle Karlik, Ana Gustafson
Treasurer: Joelle Karlik
Description: TALC is an award winning program for teens with chronic illness that decreases loneliness, promotes self-advocacy and prepares teens for the transition to adulthood. TALC won the 2006 American Academy of Pediatrics Anne E. Dyson Resident Advocacy Award and the Brown University 2007 Student Leadership Citation for Serving Community. The program was started in 2005 by residents at Hasbro Children's Hospital and now is run by a group of residents and faculty at Hasbro in collaboration with Brown medical and college students.
Breeze Against Wheeze
Leaders: Eric Mao, Peter Than, Joel Huleatt
Treasurer: Joel Huleatt
Description: Breeze Against Wheeze was founded with the purpose of raising funds for the Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s Asthma Camp and increasing awareness of asthma in the local Providence community. Our organization donates all of its profits to the Community Asthma Program at Hasbro’s Children’s Hospital to support an educational summer camp designed specially for Rhode Island Children with asthma.
Chad Brown Health Screening Team
Leaders: Greg Radin; Linda Paniagua
Treasurer: Greg Radin
Description: The goal of this group is to involve medical students in health screenings in the Providence community. We test for hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia at approximately 20 screenings organized by the Chad Brown Health Center as well as the SNMA Health Fair and Cambodian and Laotian New Years. We provide a valuable resource to our patient population, who often has limited access to health care. In addition, students get an opportunity to practice physical exam and patient communication skills.
Chordae Tendinae
Leaders: Jennifer Gao and David Washington
Treasurer:
Description: To bring music to nursing homes, hospitals, and assisted living sites. We will be performing music at various facilities.
Interpreter's Aide Program
Leaders: Jason Ferreira; Yamil FloresTreasurer: Jason Ferreira
Description: The Interpreter's Aide Program is dedicated to the alleviation of the language and cultural barrier prevalent in health care today. This program attempts to help remedy this situation by targeting student volunteers to supplement the professional interpreters working at Rhode Island Hospital. Volunteers are needed to interpret mainly in Spanish and Portuguese, but also other languages.
Marrow Donor Program
Leaders: Albert Lin; Adam Vasconcellos
Treasurer:
Description: Patients with leukemia, lymphomas, and other diseases that affect the bone marrow do not have many treatment options. More and more commonly, patients are turning towards the National Marrow Donor Program to look for citizens who share common HLA markers. Our group work together with the RI Blood Center to run campus and city-wide drives that are directed towards registering citizens into the National Marrow Registry. If matched, the registrant is offered the unique opportunity to help save a patient's life. It is especially important for minority populations, as citizens of other ethnicities often cannot find a donor in up to 60% of cases.
Rhode Island Free Clinic (RIFC)
Leaders: Christy Cramer; Andy Van Wieren; Ala Kreczko
Treasurer: Ala Kreczko
Description: The purpose of RIFC is to provide a consistent pool of medical student volunteers for the RI Free Clinic. This tradition has been continued since the opening of the clinic in 1999 and allows students to work together with physicians toward the cause of providing quality accessible healthcare for all patients. Students in the group have the opportunity to volunteer as medical recorders assisting physicians with the electronic medical record, or to interact with patients through working with the Patient Assistance Program and check out positions.
MOMS
Leaders: Ala Kreczk; Darcy BroughtonTreasurer:
Description: MOMS provides students with 1) didactic sessions on maternal-child health topics led by local experts in the field and 2) practical experience through the pairing of each student with a pregnant community member for participation in prenatal healthcare and the opportunity for patient advocacy.
Unite For Sight
Leaders:
Treasurer:
Description: We provide free community vision screenings to underserved communities of Rhode Island. Screenings that result in abnormal findings are referred to the Rhode Island Hospital eye clinic for subsequent care at free or reduced cost depending on income. We also organize eyeglass drives that provide free frames to those who need it locally and abroad and fund-raise for Unite For Sight's global mission to improve eye care and prevent blindness.
Medical Advocacy Groups
Brown Graduate & Medical Student Christian Fellowship
Leaders: Florence Chan
Treasurer: Florence Chan
Description: The Brown Graduate & Medical Student Christian Fellowship encourages and equips graduate and medical students of all ethnicities to live as Christ’s disciples, following Christ as we seek to be a redeeming influence among the people, ideas, and structures of the university and professions.
Cancer Action and Reflection Elective (CARE)
Leaders: Chirayu Patel; Jennifer O'Brien
Treasurer: Chirayu Patel; Jennifer O'Brien
Description: The main goals of C.A.R.E. are to: 1) expose students to patient perspectives on cancer; 2)promote and teach patient advocacy techniques; 3) improve action in advocacy related to psychosocial issues in cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survival; and 4) encourage collaboration between the student of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, student groups, hospitals, clinical faculty and Providence community organizations to provide a better overall experience for cancer patients and their families.
GLAAM (Gays, Lesbians, and Allies Advancing Medicine)
Leaders: Krista Hachey; Patrick Worth
Treasurer: Krista Hachey
Description: GLAAM is geared towards improving the healthcare for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) people and is a place where LGBTQ medical students and their allies work together to make their voices heard in the medical community. GLAAM recognizes three main themes: 1) there are specific health concerns more prevalent in the LGBTQ community; 2) unbiased/unprejudiced healthcare is a right that is being violated for these patients; and 3) LGBTQ-identified healthcare providers face a different set of concerns than those being addressed by mainstream medical education.
We also have a blog page, which was recently formed in an effort to record the group's activities, that can be accessed at http://glaam.blogspot.com
International Health Interest Group (IHIG)
Leaders: Erica Bromley, Dhvani Shah, Almaz Dessie
Treasurer:
Description: The goal of the IHIG is to provide opportunities for students to learn about international health on as many levels as possible. On one hand, we try to bring more information to students about what international health is?, but on the other hand, we also have a much more practical goal in mind: we want to do our best to support students as they explore international health. Along those lines, we provide information about how to get involved in international work, we have speakers and students talk about their ‘paths' to their work, and we facilitate information-sharing about opportunities, funding, logistics, and project planning.
Medical Students for Choice
Leaders: Lauren Goddard & Darcy Broughton
Treasurer:
Description: MSFC is an international student organization started in 1993 by medical students who recognized the need for reproductive health education in medical schools. The goals of MSFC are: curriculum reform to include abortion; expanded educational and clinical opportunities; increased awareness of the issue among policymakers; and support of the students' grassroots efforts around the world.
Brown Medical Students for Life
Leaders: Brenna Sullivan
Treasurer: Marshala Lee
Description: Brown Medical Students for Life is a broad based coalition of medical students and faculty concerned with ethical issues surrounding the termination of human life in medical settings. Our concerns include but are not limited to induced abortion, euthanasia, and destruction of human embryos. We hope to add balanced and thoughtful perspectives and initiate discussion about these and other human life issues. We will also serve as a resource for students with concerns about the ethical situations they may encounter as medical students and as physicians. This is a nonreligious, apolitical, nonprofit organization.
Physician as Communicator
Leaders: Luke Godwin; Jessica Marrero
Treasurer: Jessica Marrero
Description: The "Physician as Communicator" group is an elective class that provides a workshop environment for medical students to bring/share/discuss their writing and/or other varied forms of expression. Genre and media promiscuity is encouraged ("communication" being kind of a big-tent term), and thus last year student work ranged from essayistic clinical vignettes to short fiction to scientific journal articles to podcasts.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
Leaders: Portia Thurmond; Ben Schnapp
Treasurer: Portia Thurmond; Ben Schnapp
Description: Brown University's branch of Physicians for Human Rights seeks to build a community of educated medical students dedicated to advocating for and supporting the cause of human rights for all. Harnessing the specialized knowledge and skills of Brown Medical Students, Brown PHR not only supports the international work of PHR through speakers and workshops, but also aids local efforts to prevent human rights abuses locally in the state of Rhode Island.
Medical Social Groups
Spanish Lunches
Leaders: Erica Bromley
Treasurer: Erica Bromley
Description: In an effort to improve the retention and comprehension of the Spanish language, Spanish lunch meets once a week over almuerzo to practice speaking for an hour. Spanish lunch also has a goal of increasing cultural awareness, bringing in speakers, and thinking about healthcare in the latino community.
Wilderness Medicine Group
Leaders: Monica Kaitz; Daniel Cho
Treasurer:
Description: The goal of the group is two-fold: one is to get medical students outside of the classroom for their mental wellbeing. This includes rock-climbing, camping trips, as well as a tradition of yearly attendance to the Medwars competition (triatholon meets medical scenarios). The second main goal is to engage the medical student's interest in learning practical emergency skills. This group runs an elective designed to prepare future doctors for these situations. It incorporates travel medicine & disaster medicine as well. Finally, the group is flexible: there is room to incorporate everyone's needs.