New Remillard Family Community Service Fund grants broaden access to care, expand community outreach

The Remillard Family Community Service Fund has announced the recipients of funding for its 2024 cycle, awarding nine grants to support innovative projects led by UMass Chan Medical School faculty, residents, staff and students that address social determinants of health and equitable and affordable access to care, and support developing and expanding community outreach programs.

Established at the Medical School in 2015 with a $3 million donation by the Remillard Family Foundation, the fund is dedicated to providing ongoing support for community outreach programs.

A total of $124,000 in grants of up to $20,000 each was awarded for this year’s projects:

Making health care literacy and resources simplified and accessible to Ghanaian community in the Worcester area
Proposed by Rita K. Amoah, PhD’21, RN, assistant professor of nursing; Akwasi A. Duah, PhD’17, RN, assistant professor of nursing; and Rose Kronziah-Seme, PhD, MSN, RN, CHSE, assistant professor of nursing

This community engagement program utilizes English and a predominant Ghanaian language, Twi, to break down complex medical and health care processes for Ghanaian health care consumers. The program will also use patient educators to share their lived experience with the Ghanaian audience.

Deaf community-engaged outreach to improve health care access
Proposed by Melissa Anderson, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry

Via a comprehensive Deaf community-engaged process, the DeafYES! Center for Deaf Empowerment and Recovery research team produced a training film to improve health care providers’ ability to serve Deaf patients. The team proposes to disseminate the film via two community outreach events, where Deaf community agencies will partner with local academic medical centers to build new collaborations and begin to rectify mistrust.

Community-based gardening program for individuals with serious mental illness
Proposed by medical students Celine Cano-Ruiz and Sedona Lockhart and Xiaoduo Fan, MD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and director of UMass Mind

The project is an innovative community-based therapeutic gardening intervention for individuals with serious mental illness. The gardening intervention will be in collaboration with the UMass Chan Community Gardening Club and local community entities (e.g., group homes, club houses). This program will consist of eight sessions over four to eight weeks. Participants will build their gardening skills and learn about the physical and mental health benefits of gardening, and will use those skills to develop a garden space in the community setting.

Community CPR education in Central Massachusetts
Proposed by Chad Darling, MD, professor of emergency medicine

The Department of Emergency Medicine will work to strengthen its community partnerships and identify new groups, including local public health, immigrant and marginalized communities that are interested in learning CPR and AED use; identify and develop novel ways to increase capacity to teach programs; identify up to 10 train-the-trainer partners and provide them with educational equipment, training and educational handouts to increase our reach and capacity; build a community CPR website that will serve as a training and organizational resource; refine training materials and handouts; and form a relationship and training schedule with the Worcester Public Schools.

Establishment of Women’s Health Initiative at Epworth and Akwaaba Free Medical Programs
Proposed by medical student Jason Denoncourt, student director of the Worcester Free Care Collaborative; medical students Amanda Jung, Kayal Parthiban, Thomas Giauque and Kenny Huang; and Dhivya Kannabiran, MD’10, assistant professor of obstetrics & gynecology.

The Worcester Evening Free Medical Services Program will establish women’s health initiatives at the Epworth and Akwaaba Free Medical Programs in Worcester. The project aims to transform available clinical space at each location into private examination areas conducive to women’s health screenings. In addition to providing basic, essential clinical services at no cost to patients, the project includes plans for patient education, facilitated by UMass Chan student groups and local community partners, to address topics such as intimate partner violence, cancer screening, family planning and sexual safety education. The initiative plans to host monthly events at each location, staffed by physicians, advanced practice providers and medical students

UMass Chan Human Rights Asylum Program
Proposed by medical students Katie Gu and Priya Iyengar; Kamlyn Haynes, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry; and Satu Salonen, MD, MPH, assistant professor of family medicine & community health.

The UMass Chan Human Rights Asylum Program is developing a care navigation program to extend the reach and impact of the asylum program, highlighting UMass Chan’s ongoing commitment to the community and devotion to human rights. The program would utilize pre-existing and new relationships with community organizations to connect individuals coming through the asylum program with resources to meet their needs, which include financial insecurity, health care access and childcare. 

Engaging community-based organizations in co-design of social determinants of health curriculum
Proposed by Susan Hogan, MD, MPH, assistant professor of family medicine & community health; Heather-Lyn Haley, PhD, assistant professor of family medicine & community health; Domenica Perrone, director of community engagement and outreach for the UMass Chan Collaborative in Health Equity; and medical student Aishwarya Khanna.

The project includes two major implementations to achieve community engaged learning: partnership with community-based organizations to co-design a new social determinants of health curriculum that furthers transformative learning; and create a community advisory panel for the social determinants of health curriculum to ensure sustained partnership and that our required academic components are responsive to evolving community needs.

Expanding access to dermatologic care: establishing biopsy services through the “WooDerm” free dermatology clinic within the Epworth Free Medical Program
Proposed by medical students Nicole Loranger, Grace Hanrahan, Christopher Fay, Stephanie Choi and Max Kinne; and dermatology residents Gabriella Paquette, MD’23; Sarah Servattalab, MD’18, and Lindsay McCormack, MD’21; and Dori Goldberg, MD’03, assistant professor of dermatology

The UMass Chan Department of Dermatology established a free dermatology clinic, known as WooDerm, in 2023. Staffed by a team of volunteers with more than 25 medical students, 11 dermatology residents and 13 faculty members, WooDerm is the only initiative in Worcester County that offers consistent dermatology care free of charge. WooDerm has held clinic hours on the last Monday of every month at Epworth Methodist Free Medical Program and has seen an average of three patients per clinic. The clinic is staffed each month by a dermatology faculty member, two to three dermatology residents and three UMass Chan medical students. The proposed work includes expanding services at WooDerm’s monthly dermatology clinic at Epworth.

Enhancing education in transgender and gender diverse health care: a community-engaged strategy to improve gender diversity in simulation
Proposed by DNP student Robin Young, MSW, RN, LICSW; Tiffany E. Cook, MA, assistant professor of medicine; and Sylvia Stanhope, administrative manager II UMass Chan Standardized Patient Program

The project’s structured goals include establishing partnerships with local LGBTQ+, transgender and gender-diverse organizations for recruitment; strengthening trauma-informed training for standardized patients; integrating these patients into health simulation scenarios; and conducting thorough evaluations to refine and improve training, case development and learner experiences. By focusing on inclusivity, safety and the educational value of these initiatives, UMass Chan seeks to lead in transformative health professions education, ensuring that future providers are well-equipped to meet the needs of the Worcester area transgender and gender-diverse community effectively.