UMass Medical School will celebrate the graduation of the first cohort of students in the Population-based Urban and Rural Community Health (PURCH) track in the School of Medicine at the 48th Commencement ceremony on June 6.
In a new Voices of UMassMed podcast, Class of 2021 PURCH students Betsy McGovern, Afua Nti and Kevin White talk about what makes the program unique and how their experiences have prepared them to practice medicine.
“We're all interested in understanding more about social determinants of health, public health, public policy and how that interplays with who we are as physicians, what we can do in the clinical setting and the public health setting,” said McGovern.
The PURCH program welcomed its first class in 2017 at UMass Medical School’s regional campus at Baystate Health in Springfield. It’s a specialized medical degree track for students who want to practice medicine in diverse, underserved urban and rural communities. Students accepted into this track learn primary and subspecialty care of patients with focus on population health.
McGovern, Nti and White agree that the PURCH curriculum has helped them understand their role and responsibility as health care providers who will manage the health of underserved populations.
Particularly notable was the influence of community faculty who shared personal and professional lessons from their own experiences in the health system, according to Nti.
“They all have different jobs, different trades. They talk about their concerns, where they see the city of Springfield going, the history of Springfield, among other things, along with just the health itself of Springfield,” said White. “A lot of the time when you're talking about these topics, you kind of just talk, but when you actually bring in people who experience them, you can really find a way for solutions towards the future.”
Nti said, “It has taught us that we have a lot of power as physicians. I have come to realize the power that my voice as a physician, of the underserved, can have affecting change.”
To learn more about PURCH, visit: https://umassmed.edu/som/academics/purch-track/
To listen to the full podcast, visit: umassmed.edu/news/voices. To be notified when a new episode is available, subscribe on SoundCloud or iTunes.
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