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Some of the SMDEP participants show off their white coats. |
The 78 students from over 50 universities and colleges make up the inaugural class of UNMC’s Student Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP). UNMC is one of only 12 campuses in the nation to host the prestigious program.
The $1.2 million grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) allows UNMC to strengthen its pipeline of students from population groups that are traditionally underrepresented in medicine and dentistry. The four-year grant enables UNMC to create a six-week enrichment program for students in Nebraska or around the nation who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, racial and ethnic groups or rural areas.
“These 78 students represent the most economically, ethnically and geographically diverse single body of students to ever come to our campus under a single program,” said Lois Colburn, project director of the SMDEP grant and executive director of UNMC’s Center for Continuing Education.
The 78 students – rising sophomores and juniors — come from 20 states and include 50 women, 28 men, 28 Caucasians, 26 African Americans, 15 Asians, seven Latinos and two Native Americans. Of the total, 23 are from Nebraska. The students represent major urban centers and small rural communities. In addition to the University of Nebraska, they hail from such universities and colleges as Arizona State University, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Boston College, the University of California, University of Washington, Potificia U Catolica Madre y Maestra, Morehouse College and the University of Florida.
Students arrived in Omaha June 3, were honored by a barbecue picnic at the Scott Conference Center on June 4 and attended several orientation workshops on June 5. The following day they received their white coats in a ceremony at the Durham Research Center.
The students will spend six weeks at UNMC studying the fundamentals in the core sciences of medical and dental school. They also will learn strategies they will need when applying to those schools. Along with academic courses in biology, math, chemistry and physics, the students will get advice on writing their essay for medical and dental school, filling out the applications and interviewing skills.
Their stay, thus far, has been highlighted by the June 6 opening ceremony, which included comments by UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D.; University of Nebraska Regent Randy Ferlic, M.D.; John Reinhardt, D.D.S., dean of UNMC College of Dentistry; Rubens Pamies, M.D., UNMC vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean for graduate students; and keynote speaker, Magda Peck, ScD., professor and associate chairwoman for community health in the UNMC department of pediatrics.
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Magda Peck, ScD., helps a student don his white coat. |
Dr. Ferlic, a pioneering cardiovascular surgeon in Nebraska, told the group they are embarking on careers which will enable them to “live out the drama of many people’s lives through their illnesses and their health needs.”
Of the 78 students in the SMDEP program, 19 have expressed an interest in dentistry. “Today there is a greater shortage of dentists, than physicians,” said Dr. Pamies, who supervised a similar summer education program – minus the dental component — while on the faculty at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. “UNMC beat out a lot of great universities to get this program and one of our strongest points in the competition was the prestige and success of our College of Dentistry.”
Said Dr. Reinhardt: “There are 56 dental schools in the nation. UNMC’s is the seventh smallest with only 45 students per class. This allows a highly personalized education that includes dental hygiene school, as well as major specialties such as orthodontics, endodontics and periodontics.”
Dr. Reinhardt said the college recently took a busload of students to the Nebraska Panhandle, where they spent two days in seven towns providing free dental care. “We would love to help guide you toward this kind of career of service to patient and community,” he said.
Dr. Peck delivered a rousing address on the meaning of “professionalism” and why donning a white coat implies an unwritten social contract between the students and the university and the students and the community.
“When you put this coat on, you’re making a commitment to yourself that you will stand for morality and integrity,” Dr. Peck said. “You will be learning an exclusive body of knowledge that few people in the world will possess. And you will be taking this knowledge into a system that has many disparities and imbalances.
“It will be up to you, the next generation of medical professionals, to find the ways to change these disparities and imbalances. You will always have to be able to look yourselves in the mirror and answer the questions: What do I do? How am I doing it? And, why do I do what I do? You don’t put on the white coat of a medical and dental professional until you know the answers to these questions in your heart.”
Dr. Pamies closed the ceremony by remembering his own first white coat.
“At first your pockets are full of books, heavy little books that you are always referring to,” Dr. Pamies said. “But as you learn more, you carry fewer books, but your coat actually becomes heavier. Your responsibility to patients is greater.
“You are receiving the symbol of all the doctors and dentists who precede you in history. Some of you will leave UNMC this summer feeling this was the best experience of your life. Some of you may feel average. The difference lies within you.
“We each are allotted 86,400 seconds each day – 24 hours. You can’t give your seconds away, you can’t borrow any and you have to use them up completely. Make the most of this opportunity and the future is yours.”
Prior to the opening ceremony, the SMDEP students were treated to an enlightening presentation on communicating in a diverse world from Valda Boyd Ford, director of UNMC Community and Multicultural Affairs. Ford earned rave critical reviews of her presentation, “The Paralysis of Political Correctness,” last month at the Diversity2006 National Conference in Rochester, N.Y.
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The 2006 SMDEP participants. |