The Athens Advocate

The Athens AdvocAteSPRING 2012www.medicalpartnership.usg.edu

A QuArterly PublicAtion of the GhSu/uGA MedicAl PArtnerShiP

The NexT Phase BegiNs...

georgia health sciences university and the university of georgia have partnered to create a four-year medical education program in athens to help alleviate a statewide shortage of physicians that threatens the health of georgians.

Medical students expand knowledge & learning in Northeast Georgia hospitals and community healthcare practices

LeTTer from The DeaN

The sun is out, the temperature is rising, and the 2011-2012 academic year will soon end. The first year (M1) students will scatter becoming involved in clinical and basic science research projects in Athens, Augusta, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. Other M1 classmates will involve themselves in clinical activities and travel. The second year (M2) students will sit for the first part of the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination) and return to campus the first week in July as third year students (M3s) to begin the core clinical clerkships, working in hospital and office settings throughout Northeast Georgia.

Highlighted in this issue of the Athens Advocate are many student activities including the formation of student interest groups and fund raising. With the support of a philanthropist and participation by UGA faculty, medical students and UGA honor students have had the opportunity to learn together through a series of unique presentations on Health Care Reform, Physician Assisted Suicide, and the continuum from patient care to research – from the bedside to the bench. As the Medical Partnership grows, so too, do the opportunities for active community involvement and learning outside the classroom.

The nascent skills of lifelong learning, one of the backbones of the Partnership Curriculum, will be ‘put to the test’ as the new M3s begin their year of proscribed and required clinical education. No longer will learning predominately occur in small group facilitated case discussions but in patient rooms and ambulatory offices. The ability to ‘ask the clinical question’ and successfully ‘find the answer’ are only two of the skills practiced in the first two years that will be essential hallmarks of clinical learning. Soon the student will be using the newly acquired information to diagnose the patient, develop an appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic plan, or help the patient to understand their illness and in partnership with their physicians, choose the best intervention for their medical problem.

Kudos to the faculty, staff, community volunteers, philanthropists, physician practices and institutions who have supported the growth and development of the Medical Partnership Campus. We are excited to begin the next Phase!

Barbara L. Schuster, M.D.Campus Dean

GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership

Editor: Alison Bracewell-McCullick, MPA, :: Director of Outreach & Communications

Design and Layout: Jennifer Stowe, MS

Photography: Andrew Tucker and Dot Paul (UGA Photographic Services) Cr

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Inside This Issue...

:Letter from the dean

Page 3:Curriculum spotlight

Page 4 :Faculty spotlight: transforming Faculty to teach and serve

Page 5:special recognitions

Pages 6 & 7 :Feature story: the Next Phase Begins

Page 8 & 9: White Coat scholarship initiative

Pages 10 & 11:student showcase

Page 12:

student Fundraisers

The GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership Campus is currently located at

279 Williams Street, Athens, Georgia

For more information, please visitwww.medicalpartnership.usg.edu

or call 706-369-5900

2 GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership

stay informed. Join our Facebook Group!

Find us on Facebook by searching: MCG/UGA Medical Partnership

3The ATHENS ADVOCATE — Spring 2012 Issue

CurriCuLum sPoTLighT

W. Scott Richardson, MD is the Campus Associate Dean for Curriculum at the

GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership.

FAQ: Why is lifelong learning so impor-tant in medicine?

WSR: Medical knowledge is constantly expanding, and the pace of this growth is accelerating. Our enormous public and private investment in biomedical research has revolutionized our under-standing of the biology of health and human disease and has led to major ad-vances in the clinical care of patients. This continual knowledge growth pro-vides hope for those who suffer and also causes rapid change in the current best knowledge and care practices. All health care workers are required to stay current with new and evolving knowl-edge and recommendations for care. Continuing medical education (CME) is the organized effort to keep up to date after graduation from medical school and residency training. Without ef-fective CME, physicians’ knowledge of currently recommended diagnostic and therapeutic strategies declines over time.

FAQ: Which types of CME are ineffec-tive?

WSR: Numerous randomized trials have shown that CME that involves the pas-sive listening to traditional, didactic lectures is ineffective in changing physi-cians’ knowledge and in changing their clinical performance. Simply subscrib-ing to journals and occasionally read-ing them doesn’t change our knowledge either.

FAQ: Are there any types of CME that are effective?

WSR: Trials have shown that CME that uses active learning strategies can be ef-fective at changing our knowledge and clinical performance. These include learning in groups where cases are dis-cussed and new knowledge is learned

in the context of making clinical deci-sions, clinical rotations in which physi-cians spend time with experts in their field, and ‘academic detailing’ in which trusted physician teachers visit the offic-es of others and teach new approaches to patient care without commercial ad-vertisements.

FAQ: What skills do students need to succeed for a career of lifelong learning?

WSR: The rapidly evolving science of CME suggests that several skills are needed. First, students need to develop reflective self-awareness to detect gaps in knowledge or skill, yet they also need to arrange for their knowledge to be regularly and independently tested. This is because we often have difficulty discerning exactly what we do and do not know. Second, students need to de-velop professional resilience and per-sistence in the face of their identified gaps, so they stay engaged in learning throughout their career. Third, students need to develop learning resourceful-ness and several focused skills to learn new things, yet also learn to do this un-der conditions of severe time pressure.

FAQ: How are the students at the Part-nership developing some of these need-ed skills?

WSR: Our students enter medical school with lots of knowledge and learning prowess, yet while they are here we help them develop and grow more of both. We provide frequent tests of knowledge, at least weekly, to help them check their understanding of that week’s mate-rial and to acclimatize them to regular testing. We also explicitly address at-titudes and skills for lifelong learning and assess their performance of these activities. Also, we teach them how to develop their abilities to transform their knowledge gaps into answerable ques-

tions, navigate learn-ing resources, ap-praise these resources for credibility and im-portance, and apply the new knowledge back to their cases in multiple stages, usu-ally at least twice a week. This requires them to rapidly extract the main gist of a learning episode, summarize it concise-ly, report it to others, and use the new knowledge in decision making.

FAQ: How well are the Partnership stu-dents learning these skills?

WSR: You have to understand how much culture shock this can be for an entering student. They may arrive here from undergraduate programs that have emphasized primarily the memorization and recall of facts, based primarily on the lecture model that has been found deficient. Once here, the student must continue to memorize a great deal, yet they must also re-learn how to learn in ways that are more sustainable for an entire career in medicine and that don’t rely primarily on lectures. This learning transformation begins during medical school and usually continues during residency and afterward, often taking up to ten years and 10,000 hours of de-liberate practice to master. Most of our students appear to be on schedule and on target in developing these lifelong learning skills.

LifeLoNg LearNiNg iN meDiCiNe: The mosT frequeNTLy askeD quesTioNs


By Michele Monteil

The Southern Group on Educational Affairs (SGEA), with almost 50 Southern Medical Schools as institutional mem-bers, hosts annual regional meetings to “foster excellence along the continuum of medical education.” This objective is facilitated through a forum for discuss-ing the concerns of the medical educa-tion profession. In April, at the SGEA 2012 meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, four Faculty members from the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership led a discus-sion group on “Transforming Faculty to Teach and Serve in New Integrated Medical Curricula.” Our team included Dr. Casey Bassett, Dr. Brian Higgins, Dr. Scott Richardson and myself.

Why is transformation from traditional medical curricula important? What do Faculty members of the Medical Part-nership have to share with others about their own experiences of transformation in teaching and serving in new medical curricula?

Key differences between traditional and integrated curricula include the type and mode of delivery of information. In traditional curricula, most informa-tion is taught in lecture format, or pas-sive learning style, and is largely disci-pline specific. For example, students are taught disciplines, such as histology, anatomy, and physiology, by specialists in each of these areas, with little integra-tion of this information. In contrast, in integrated curricula, there is emphasis on contextual learning with integration of different disciplines as they relate to the system being taught. Thus, if learning about the heart, students will be taught all the relevant anatomy, histology, and physiology of the heart, and this infor-mation is integrated to provide a more holistic view. There is also less empha-sis on lectures in large groups and more

active learning in small groups formats, such as problem-based learning.

Most American Medical Schools have been moving to more integrated under-graduate medical curricula yet many Faculty members who teach such cur-ricula have been trained and taught in traditional medical curricula. The tran-sition from teaching in traditional pro-grams to integrated ones requires Facul-ty to develop new skills and to abandon old ways of doing things.

The GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership offers a new 4-year integrated curricu-lum, in which information from mul-tiple scientific disciplines is woven into weekly overarching themes. Its Faculty members have come from a wide range of medical schools, with different tra-ditions and curricula, and many of us have had to rapidly develop a different method of teaching our respective dis-ciplines.

My training in Clinical Immunology was in the United Kingdom, and I taught undergraduate medical students for 25 years. However, it became apparent to me not long after joining the Medical Partnership in March 2011 that I would have to adopt a different approach when I taught Immunology to the Year 2 stu-dents.

One of the challenges that I encoun-tered was the considerable variation in the knowledge of Immunology among the students, which ranged from almost no knowledge of the subject to the Mas-ters level. The challenge was to expose some of the students to introductory concepts, while almost simultaneously teaching the relevant integrated weekly themes that contained more advanced clinical immunological concepts.

It was helpful to be able to accommo-date students with self-paced activities (SPAs). These are presentations or docu-

ments prepared by Faculty which allow students to acquire background infor-mation on subjects in their own time. Thus, prior to pre-paring my first lec-ture, I developed a SPA entitled “The Immune System: An Overview,” which students could assim-ilate before starting the Year 2 program.

Further, since my discipline had been integrated into the themed weeks and helped to bolster understanding of the weekly clinical cases which students discussed in small groups, it was often necessary to knit together seemingly dis-parate immunology concepts, such as allergy and the body’s response to severe infection, as when the weekly theme was Inflammation. With the guidance of a colleague, Dr. Gregg Nagle, who has used the Team-based Learning format of instruction very successfully, and some 10 hours of preparation, I developed my first Team-Based Learning session.

My colleagues and I certainly had many stories to share with others at the SGEA 2012 conference about our respective challenges and the solutions we have had to find. We are all committed to further improvement. Thus, while we may have led the discussion group, we were also interested in learning from our audience, as they had ideas that could be used to improve our teaching of fu-ture generations of Medical Partnership students.

TraNsformiNg faCuLTy To TeaCh aND serve iN New iNTegraTeD meDiCaL CurriCuLa

Michele Monteil, MB.BS, PhD, FRCPath is the Immunologist at the

GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership.

faCuLTy sPoTLighT


eDuCaTor of The year | gregg NagLe

The M2 students at the Athens campus are proud to announce Dr. Gregg Nagle as the winner of the Educator of the Year award. Although Dr. Nagle was our his-tology professor last year, his mastery in the art of teaching clearly left a lasting impression on the students and made

him an obvious choice for this award. His ability to simplify a topic as complex as histology and present the information in a clinically relevant manner is astound-ing. In the end, what truly sets Dr. Nagle apart is his undeniable passion for teach-ing coupled with an approachable, sup-

portive, and enthusiastic demeanor that makes him one of the most memorable and loved professors we have ever had.

By Nitya NairPresident of the Student Government Organization

amy marTiN: BLue key NaTioNaL hoNor soCieTy aT uga

Blue Key National Honor Society was founded in October 1924. It recognizes men and women of outstanding character and ability who have achieved distinction for their leadership abilities as well as recognition for scholarship and service. Second-year student Amy Martin was initiated as part of the 2012-2013 Blue Key class and is the first GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership student to be inducted into Blue Key.

While a primary reason for creating the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership was to further develop relationships amongst the facul-ty of two of Georgia’s most outstanding research institutions, there has also been an opportunity to bring together undergraduate stu-dents and medical students. A generous donor funded a three-part program to allow UGA Honors students and GHSU/UGA Medi-cal Partnership students to meet and discuss healthcare issues with an expert in the field. The first program was chaired by Dr. Phaedra Corso, Professor and Department Head of Health Policy and Management in the UGA College of Public Health and focused on the eco-nomics of the Health Care Act. The second program involved discussion of a person’s Right to Die and was chaired by Dr. Fazal Khan, Associate Professor of Law in the UGA Law School. The final program in April was a presentation and discussion en-titled “Pancreatic Cancer: Open Conversations about a Silent Dis-ease.” The featured speakers were Mr. Howard Young, an Atlanta-based business owner and 10-year pancreatic cancer survivor; Dr. Lonnie Herzog, an Atlanta-based internist and Mr. Young’s physi-cian; and Dr. Lance Wells, a professor and researcher at UGA and a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scientist.

uga hoNors sTuDeNTs & meDiCaL ParTNershiP sTuDeNTs Come TogeTher

Nitya Nair is a second-year medical student at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership.

She is from Alpharetta, Georgia and is a graduate of the University of Georgia.


The NexT Phase BegiNs...While many will be preparing for their family cookout, a boat ride on the lake or attending the community firework dis-play, students and clini-

cal faculty of the Medical Partnership will be starting the next phase of our cur-riculum. Phase 3, the clinical education of third and fourth year students, begins on July 2. This next phase of medical education will embed medical students in the community, working continuously in clinical settings including outpatient offices, hospitals and other health care settings.

Each of the students must complete a series of rotations during this phase of

medical education. These experiences include inpatient internal medicine, gen-eral and subspecialty surgery, psychiatry, neurology, family medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, palliative care, emergency medicine, critical (intensive) care, and outpatient internal medicine. Students will also complete a “subintern-ship,” an intense experience designed to allow 4th year students to work at a resi-dent level, and four electives. The cul-mination of Phase 3 is applying to, and matching in a chosen specialty for gradu-ate training, and receiving the Doctorate of Medicine degree.

The ability to move to this next phase of the medical curriculum would not be possible without partnering with lo-cal clinical practices, hospitals and other

health care entities. Patients can expect to encounter medical students at Ath-ens Regional Medical Center, St. Mary’s Health Care System, Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Barrow Regional Medi-cal Center, and Clearview Medical Cen-ter. The majority of clinical practices that will educate medical students will be in the greater Athens area. Students will also be placed in outlying areas in-cluding Loganville, Elberton, Jefferson, Gainesville and Gwinnett County. By exposing medical students to these com-munities early in their clinical education, it is hoped that students will consider es-tablishing a practice in the same type of setting when their medical education is complete.

Over 150 new clinical faculty members


Terrence Steyer, MD is the Clincial Sciences Chair at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership.

have been recruited to provide the train-ing during these crucial clinical years. As a clinical faculty member, physicians will have access to the GHSU Medical Library in Augusta, which is now primar-ily an electronic resource. Clinical fac-ulty will also be able to earn continuing medical education credit for participat-ing in activities designed to make them a better teacher. They will also receive access to web-based continuing educa-tion from GHSU and receive discounts on in-person Continuing Medical Educa-tion (CME) conferences.

The Medical Partnership is also holding faculty development sessions to help clinical faculty become familiar with the GHSU curriculum and to develop teaching strategies that can be employed

in a busy clinical practice setting. We are also working with the office staff of these practices to teach them how to in-tegrate students into an office setting in ways that are the least disruptive to the clinical flow of the office. Encounters with students should not delay or inhibit a person’s clinical care and more likely will enhance care. While the Medical Partnership emphasizes the collabora-tions of the University of Georgia and Georgia Health Sciences University, the partnership is much more extensive than that. It is a true partnership with the health care community of Greater Athens, the clinical providers through-out Northeast Georgia and the patients served by health care entities throughout Northeast Georgia. These are the true partners without whom Phase 3 of the

Medical Partnership curriculum would not be successful.

We are continuing to recruit addition-al clinical faculty to help educate our medical students. If you are interested in participating as a Phase 3 clinical faculty member, please contact Jeanette Bowman, the Phase 3 coordinator, at [email protected] or 706-369-5657. We are looking forward to the fireworks that are coming in July --- both to cel-ebrate our nation’s birth and to kick off the next phase of the Medical Partner-ship.

Medical students expand knowledge & learning in Northeast Georgia hospitals and community healthcare practices

By Bree Berry


whiTe CoaT sChoLarshiP iNiTiaTive

As one of the forty members of the in-augural class at the GHSU/UGA Medi-cal Partnership, my first week of medi-cal school in August 2010 is a blur. After years of dreaming about medical school and several months of making more solid preparations, the time to start was sud-denly upon me. During that first week, I moved into a new apartment with a new roommate in Athens, met my 39 class-mates, rode a bus down to Augusta to get fitted for my white coat, struggled with computer software updates, became CPR certified and in the midst of all this, when I least expected it, I re-ceived a letter in the mail from the MCG Financial Aid office.

My letter con-gratulated me and explained that I had been chosen as the recipient of the Asa and Eli Kirby Scholarship, a scholarship that would be part of the new White Coat Scholarship Initiative that had been established as a joint effort between GHSU and UGA to raise scholarship funds for Georgia medical students. My first reac-tion was of joy and relief – for a medical student taking out loans to pay for school, loans to pay for books, and loans to pay for living expenses, the weight of debt be-comes a heavy burden. Every single dol-lar of financial aid is appreciated beyond words.

As the first week of school drew to a close, I learned that I would have the op-

portunity to meet the family that gifted my scholarship at the Interim Medical Partnership building dedication ceremo-ny. Amid the bustle of the ceremony, I met with Dr. Bryan and Samantha Kirby, a young and beautiful couple, both decked out in their proud UGA red and black. Both UGA graduates, Bryan attended the Medical College of Georgia on his path toward becoming an anesthesiologist. Af-ter the tragic loss of their two young sons, the Kirby’s friends and family helped endow the scholarship in their names

in order to help cherish their memories. From the moment I met them, Bryan and Samantha welcomed me into their fam-ily – they began to include me in their nightly prayers and asked if they could stay in touch throughout school to hear how things were going.

Over the past two years, my life as a medi-cal student has evolved, and although the day-to-day usually runs more smoothly

than my first frantic week, it’s often easy to get completely wrapped up in school at the expense of other aspects of life. I’ve been blessed not only by my scholarship, but also by the family that came with it – Bryan and Samantha check in often to see how school is going, offering support and friendly advice. As any medical student will know, the people in our lives who are in “our corner” cheering us on as we make our way through school are often the unsung heroes of the medical school process. Like my own family, they help

me stay grounded and remember that there are im-portant things in life outside of my textbooks and learning reports for school. When the Kirbys wel-comed their new son, Crawford Joseph, into the world at Christ-mas time, I was honored to have been included in their family at such a special time of life.

Having now (nearly!) made it through the first two years of medical school, I look forward to

the challenges of starting our first clinical rotations and am comforted by Bryan’s encouraging words that the clinical years are the best years of medical school. I also look forward to having slightly more exciting news from day-to-day medical school to report back to both of my fami-lies.

my seCoND famiLy: makiNg a DiffereNCe

Pictured above from left: Scholarship recipient, Bree Berry, with Dr. Bryan and Samantha Kirby, and UGA President, Dr. Michael Adams.

Bree Berry is a second-year medical student at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership. She

is from Marietta, Georgia and is a graduate of Davidson College.


The White Coat Scholarship Initiative was launched in 2010 with a goal of increasing access to public medical education in Georgia. The fundraising teams of the Georgia Health Sciences University and the University of Georgia are working together on this critical program, and we need your help.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has projected a severe physician shortage in the United States by the year 2025. A number of factors, including population growth and the spike in the number of aging Americans, will contribute to the demand for physicians outpacing the supply. The high cost of education; dwindling federal support for teaching hospitals; a critical shortage of health care faculty; and inadequate private and public insurance reimbursement, particularly for those serving the most vulnerable and impoverished citizens, have only compounded the problem.

The state of Georgia will be among the states feeling the greatest impact of this shortage. Currently, Georgia ranks ninth in the nation for population growth but is 41st in the number of doctors per capita.

The alliance of two of Georgia’s most prominent universities combined with a supportive medical community has created an unparalleled opportunity for the education of future physicians in Georgia. However, much more needs to be done to attract the best and brightest students, especially given escalating tuition and today’s challenging economic climate.

Among the first academic priorities of the White Coat Scholarship Initiative is to increase scholarships to attract talented students while also removing the burden of student debt, which can discourage students, especially those of limited financial means, from entering the medical profession. For those who do enter and complete

medical school, high levels of student debt are a disincentive to serve in medically underserved areas or to choose specialties where the need is greatest, such as primary care. We need your help to ensure that financial obstacles don’t deter students from serving a state with an urgent need for more physicians.

To learn more about the White Coat Scholarship Initiative, please contact one of our development officers:

Susan L. BarcusGHSU Senior Vice President for Advancement & Community Relations/Chief Development Officer(800) [email protected]

Keith OelkeUGA Senior Executive Director for Central Development(888) [email protected]

iNCreasiNg aCCess To PuBLiC meDiCaL eDuCaTioN

By Eric Wang

It is sometimes said that medicine is both an art and a science, and I believe that the field of surgery is an elegant example. A surgeon not only needs to know the science behind what kind of procedure would be best for a patient’s condition – What do the research papers and clinical data suggest? What do the numbers say? – but, in addition, he or she must also know how to best perform it. How deep should the incisions be for this particular patient? Which cuts can be avoided? What can be done to make this operation even more efficient? Making the correct decisions takes skill. To perform a procedure even more effectively and safely than ever before, or to develop a new method entirely, takes even more skill. It becomes nothing less than an art form in itself.

As with developing any skill, one needs to gain and develop an interest in it, and also have opportunities to practice and improve. In regards to surgery, there was no regular outlet through which M1 and

M2 students at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership could do so. However, Dr. Cheryl Dickson, the Campus Dean of Student Affairs at the Medical Partnership, identified this need, and as a result, the Surgery Interest Group (SIG) was established soon afterward.

The mission of the SIG is to “provide an avenue through which any GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership student may learn about surgery, as well as again, confirm, and develop a passion for the field and its various specialties.” All students at the Medical Partnership are welcome, whether they are already interested in surgery or not. Recognizing that skills are often best learned through experience, the SIG places an emphasis on hands-on activities; for example, Dr. Toby Tally, a surgeon at the Medical Partnership who serves as the faculty advisor of the SIG, is currently hosting a series of classes in which students can learn basic surgical skills, such as how to make surgical knots and set up sterile operating-room perimeters. Future activities may also

include surgical simulations, talks from other local Athens-area surgeons, and career advising sessions to help guide any students who ultimately decide to pursue a future in surgery.

Through the SIG, it is our hope that our fellow classmates will not only gain an in-depth and enjoyable introduction to the field of surgery, but also develop a passion for it – a passion for the science and art that surgery links together for the healing of patients.

The members of the Surgery Interest Group of the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership are: Eric Wang (Chair), Jeffrey Donahue (Vice-Chair), Andrew Johnson (Vice-Chair), Matt Meng, Parker Smith, Dave Gupta, Michael Schecter, Natalie Nicholson, Zach Rohm, Boris Kovalenko, Courtney Raybon, Lindsey Sweat, Nick Callihan, Nick Fitzpatrick, Nigel George, Greg Foster, Dr. Toby Tally (Faculty Advisor)

asPiriNg surgeoNs: The surgery iNTeresT grouP


Eric Wang is a first-year medical student at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership. He is

from Duluth, Georgia and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

sTuDeNT showCase

February 14th is a day often associated with teddy bears. This year, however, first and second year medical students gave a whole new meaning to Valentine’s Day teddy bears. Partnering with Alps Road Elementary School, 30 GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership students had the op-portunity to participate in a “Teddy Bear Clinic” with 60 kindergartners. The mis-sion was to alleviate fears about visiting the doctor by walking through a typical visit using the teddy bear as the patient. Thirty student volunteers gathered in the Alps Road school office wearing white coats. Our pockets were loaded with “doctoring gear”: stethoscopes, reflex hammers, Snellen eye charts, and pen-lights. The Student Government Organi-zation (SGO) also provided cartoon-dec-orated Band-Aids, tongue depressors, and pocket-sized treats to share with our “pa-tients.” Dr. Cheryl Dickson and Alison McCullick, our program mentors, gave us a pep talk and final directives before we split into three groups to cover the three kindergarten classrooms. Each group

filed into the kindergarten room where the children were eagerly waiting, gath-ered on the reading carpet. After a short introduction explaining who we were and why we were dressed in white coats, each student doctor was paired with two kindergartners and one teddy bear. The children had each been asked to bring a favorite teddy bear to school with them. These bears served as the “pa-tients” visiting the doctor for the day. As each trio settled into a cozy corner, the hum and buzz in the room began to rise. The children loved using their teddies as the patients, many taking on the role of brother, sister, or parent. They explained to the doctor where teddy was in pain and what his symptoms were.

The medical students reviewed the steps of the physical exam with teddy, allowing the children to watch and ask questions. Kids would wait excitedly as each new exam tool was drawn out of our white coat pockets. The student doctor would show how to use the instrument on ted-dy and then the children were allowed to touch and use the tool, practicing on

teddy as well. The medical students let each child become comfortable with the exam and talked about why visiting the doctor was important. By the end of the visit, teddies were healthy and well again, wearing colorful Band-Aids and carrying a fun toy they had received from the doc-tor.

By allowing children a hands-on, low-stress experience, they were offered the chance to assuage fears they may have had about visiting their doctors. The kids asked lots of questions about the instru-ments and many shared stories about times they had visited the doctor in the past. Most of them also wanted to talk about the important, but scary “s” word: shots! By the end of the visit, we hoped to have helped the children gain trust in their doctors and to see the value of healthy living and medicine.

By Rachel Weaver

2nd Annual Teddy Bear Clinic


Rachel Weaver is a second-year medical student at the GHSU/UGA Medical

Partnership. She is from Canton, Ohio and is a graduate of Tocooa Falls College.

By Michael Schecter

While the academic side of medical school is always busy, it is always important to remember to save some time for fun. With this goal in mind, along with the shared enjoyment of food and a pinch of competition, the Class of 2015 coordinated the First Annual Medical Partnership Chef-Off – a cooking competition designed to bring our community together.

This event was held on the Interim Medical Partnership Building terrace on Saturday, April 21 and was open to the public. Thirty-two individuals (representing a variety of graduate schools as well as faculty, staff and students from our own

Medical Partnership) signed up to prepare food for this event and compete with one another to see who will be this year’s top “chef.”

So you may ask, “how in the world can you determine a winner with so many dishes to choose from?” We had a panel of seven judges including Chef Alex Orban, Chef at Athens Regional Medical Center, Chef Paul Oesterle, Executive Chef of UGA Food Services, a Chef from Mama’s Boy, and Bob Sleppy, Executive Director of Nuci’s Space. The dishes entered in this competition ranged from buffalo chicken dip to banana pudding to chicken feta spinach torte and included entrées, appetizers, sides and desserts. The winning dish was prepared by Medical

Partnership student Alison Ruch.

If you were unable to attend the event this year, not to worry. We hope this will become an annual event so plan on coming next year!

Michael Schecter is a first-year medical student at the GHSU/UGA Medical

Partnership Campus. He is from Rome, Georgia and graduated from Wofford College.

Chef-off CookiNg ComPeTiTioN a suCCess

goLf TourNameNT uPDaTe

The second annual GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership Student Government Organization golf tournament was held on Saturday, March 24 at the UGA golf course. Sixty golfers participated in the event which raised funds to support Children’s Specialty Services, a clinic at St. Mary’s Hospital, as well as student academic endeavors. Generous sponsors, including premier sponsor Atlanta Wood Masters, platinum sponsor The Urology Clinic, silver sponsor Sign-A-Rama, and bronze sponsors Akins

Ford, Athens Orthopedic Clinic, and Billboard Connection, allowed the students to provide a top-notch event for the participants.

Nitya Nair, M2 President of SGO, shared her thoughts on the experience. “It was absolutely inspiring to be a part of the team that organized the golf tournament this year. The support we received from our sponsors, local physicians, and our family and friends was wonderful, and it really made our class feel like part of the community. We are thankful to have the opportunity to support the Childrens’

Specialty Services Clinic, which serves children with long-term, chronic disease. Having a clinic of this type located in Athens saves families thousands of hours lost from work and school, and thousands of miles of driving by bringing the service to them instead of having to commute to Augusta or Atlanta. In the future, we hope to continue building connections in the community while giving back to those who have supported us along the way.”

The Athens Advocate

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