Project 2 Draft 2

Marya Ali

Mat Wenzel

ENC 2135-63

October 20, 2017

Project 2 Second Draft:

As a new student aiming to be a physician, it can be overwhelming to think about how much knowledge and wisdom I will have attain to reach that position. To students who have been inspired by the sciences and find themselves pursuing the art of medicine on a pre-medical track, physicians may seem like a very far goal to reach. They appear that they are able to stay calm in any situation, to deliver optimal care to each and every patient, are full of knowledge and wisdom, and are the image of everything prospective physicians hope to encompass. With all of this to learn over the many year path to becoming a physician, it can appear wearying and confusing as to how to gain all of this wisdom and where to even start. The goal of the Honors Medical Scholars Society (HMSS) is to help shape its members into truly prospective physicians and expose them to these aspects of medicine to help guide them on their paths to becoming doctors.

The goal of HMSS is to develop physicians with the focus on emphasizing patient centered care and response to community needs. Brianna Zuckerman, one of the second year members of HMSS, says, “HMS shapes students into “prospective physicians” because it enables them to practice medicine as more than academia. It enables them to learn truly patient centered humanistic care. Patient centered care is an important value and practice for a doctor that is being discussed. It is the type of care that focuses on the patient’s needs while being respectful and responses to them as an individual. It also encourages them to want to treat all patients, especially the underserved, while being realistic about the challenges involved and the work it takes.” During HMSS meetings, a number of speakers ranging from doctors and nurses to community leaders in health come to hold panels and discussions about many health related topics including underserved populations, those who suffer from abuse or abusive communities, patients with HIV and AIDS, how to care for patients while managing your own well being, and more. One of the topics that particularly caught my attention has been the discussion on how to provide optimal patient centered care to your patients while not “getting to involved” in the patient’s situation to where it affects your own well being and performance with other patients. This was very interesting because in order to provide optimal patient centered care, physicians need to emphasize with their patients to a certain degree in order to consider the best treatment options from their perspective and considering which options would be not only the most effective but also the most agreeable for this individual. Especially in circumstances with patients with trauma, life threatening diseases, or injuries from situations involving abuse, it can seem hard to not be saddened or hurt by empathizing with their situations. However, physicians have a duty to find this balance of understanding and care to bring the best treatment and help that they can to patients. Meetings with discussions in these deep topics help students begin thinking like physicians. HMSS students are prompted to consider many aspects of a story including what we believe the person is struggling with and how would these situations are approached. The more these situations are discussed and the more years of experience and wisdom that is shared, the closer these students feel to reaching that role of a physician.

A lot of the ideals and teachings of HMSS are reflective of important trends in medicine especially those to train prospective physicians to begin thinking with the mindset of a physician as well as about the importance of the humanistic side to the care of the medicine. In the article Integrating Caring into Patient- Centered Care through Interprofessional Education and Ethics: The Caring Project. by Jane S. Mahoney, they emphasize how “In an era of health care that is driven by biological and technical advances, there is a need to safeguard the caring component of care.” Patient-centered care sounds like something that should be very obvious for medical practice. However, this term is important to instill in even prospective physicians because it emphasizes the humanistic and personal caring side of medicine that allows physicians to provide patients with the best care they can by taking into careful consideration the feelings and needs of every individual and simply showing that they care. This is a topic that is discussed frequently in HMSS and reflected in the personal style of the service work we conduct. Brianna Zuckerman responded in her interview sharing that “We go to places like the Big Bend Homeless Coalition, the Kearney Center, and Riverchase Care Center to not only form bonds with those people but also to learn more about their lives from a personal perspective.” At the end of every summer, HMSS students hold a service trip to Immokalee to work with the underserved population of migrant workers there. During this trip, HMSS participates in the Lipman Backpack give away as well as in a college application workshop for STRIDE students there. During the Lipman Backpack give away, we assist the organization in handing out school backpacks and school supplies to the children. We also host a booth with the FSU College of Medicine representatives to hand out backpacks with health related items such as hand sanitizer and sunscreen as well as informational packets about applying to FSU for college. This event is special because we are also able to give the children of this community a day of play and encourage fun exercise by playing soccer and other sports that they like with them. During the second half of this service trip, HMS hosts a presentation and panel at the Immokalee Technical College with the local high school students involved with the SSTRIDE program hosted by FSU. This particular program and panel is a workshop for STEM oriented students in Immokalee who are interested in applying to college to pursue education in the field they are interested in. This workshop is important because there is a serious lack of college counselors in this town and most of these students will be the first in their family to go to college. I was able to provide a particularly large amount of insight as the only incoming freshman on the trip as I had just recently completed the college application process and was the most currently fluent in the information. This was a wonderful opportunity to not only bring this information to these students but also to form closer relationships with them and work closely with them on their worries and hopes for college. By doing this, we are able to do service work as well as get to know the students of this community on a more personal level letting us explore sides of the service all of which are essential for physicians and are being emphasized more and more.

Physicians are regarded very highly for their knowledge, training, and skill. While they are highly skilled professionals who have conquered rigorous learning, it is important especially for prospective physicians to remember that physicians are human just like anyone else who have their individual feelings and can make mistakes. An important part of the path to becoming a doctor includes realizing this and that a physician is not some absurdly hard to attain highly state but rather a highly educated human who works to serve society to the best of their ability based on informed judgment and knowledge. As Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu wrote in his article “Vulnerability and the Beginner’s Mind.”, where he appeared on the first day of a typical pre-med course wearing a traditional kimono and speaking in Japanese to gage the students’ responses and teach them the important lesson which he states “I told the students that the experience of vulnerability helps to develop humility for a lifelong commitment to self-reflection, rather than a detached mastery of a finite body of knowledge.” This discusses the idea of “putting yourself into the patients’ shoes” and learning new ways to better your practice by experiencing or relating to their situation in the hospital from multiple perspectives. There are some aspects that physicians may not realize about the treatment of patients if we are too focused on the knowledge of the subject rather than their personal feelings. This teaches a very important side to medicine that is essential to learn, the humanistic side. Through this, physicians are better able consider how to deliver the best patient care they can provide. HMSS encourages this attitude and flexibility of mind by holding group reflection sessions on our work after each volunteering opportunity or service trip we participate in or host. Similarly, as Brianna Zuckerman elaborated in her interview, “We choose to do service that isn’t glamorous, but makes a difference and gives us valuable experience in learning people’s diverse backgrounds.” HMSS believes it is very important to expose its pre-med students to many aspects of the health field. This can help students bridge the gap and grow on their path to becoming physicians.