Importance of Being There

When an MCCF student meeting is scheduled it is almost never convenient to drop what you’re doing and attend. It is especially difficult when you find yourself wondering if the students really care or if the time you take away from your work can be justified.

Don’t underestimate the power of your presence...
Don’t forget the power of your influence...
Don’t forget the power of your witness...
Don’t forget the power of friendship and hospitality...
Don’t forget the power of your story...

So when you look at the clock or the calendar and notice another MCCF student meeting approaching, remember the importance of being there. In a disconnected, postmodern world, your commitment to humbly walk with students in their journey through medical or dental school may have a profound but an entirely unknown impact. Be encouraged, Jesus invested Himself in twelve students and they changed the world.

Click here to read the full essay, slightly modified from one written by Allan Harmer, ThM, CMDA Midwest Regional Director, and visit MCCF Now for updates about when URMC student activities are taking place.

Summer reading idea

The MCCF student group chose to study the theological insights in Wm. Paul Young's book "The Shack" last year in their weekly Bible study, but it took Susan and I until this summer to catch up with them. It seems that we're latecomers to this New York Times bestseller, which now has over 7 million copies in print. If you haven't already, pick up a copy and read it this summer, sort through the issues and feelings it raises, then consider passing it on to someone else who might appreciate it. You'll find the time well-spent.

Summer Medical Institute

The vision of the Summer Medical Institute (SMI) is to raise up healthcare providers who use their professions to honor God and grow in love for Him. The SMI is organized by the Valley Baptist Family Practice Residency in Harlingen, TX. This will be the ninth year for the South Texas SMI. Being located on the TX/MX border, we have ample opportunity to provide care to medically underserved neighborhoods called colonias.

The SMI medical outreach serves as the practical vehicle for mentoring the next generation of health care workers. Each year we accept applications from qualified physicians and nurses to serve as mentors to SMI students. Mentors come alongside students to encourage and inform them about the role of the healthcare worker in reaching the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Most faculty serve for a week during the month-long project. If you would be interested in coming alongside students this summer, feel free to contact Steve Johnson, SMI Coordinator, by phone at 956-389-2492.

Please take a few moments to pray about playing a role in what has proven to be a significant experience in medical students’ lives.

View from Stanford

A young medical student at Stanford University stood before the table of RZIM [Ravi Zacharias International Ministries] books and resources beaming. “We don’t see these things very often,” he said, clarifying, “Not books; there’s no shortage of books. I mean Christianity without the hostility.” He proceeded to describe students and friends who deride the possibility of possessing both faith and intellect, medical professors who actually apologize when the language of design inadvertently slips into lectures on the body, and the isolation that comes from trying to stand in the shadows of this increasingly antagonistic majority. When I inquired as to the availability of support from campus ministries or local churches, his response was equally dismal. “There are groups that speak to the emotionality of faith, but academically, there is no one.”

- from Jill Carattini's recent RZIM report from Stanford and Berkeley. How different are things here in Rochester, and what can we do to foster a more open forum in our own academic town square?

A thought experiment

Our perfectly designed US healthcare system

The interregnum between a presidential election and the inauguration is a time of feverish activity, in which the president elect and his staff decide who will help them govern and what they will try to do first. The press and pundits speculate breathlessly on who will be appointed and what they will do first. As I write this, for example, we have just learnt that the new administration’s secretary of health and human services is likely to be a respected former US senator, Tom Daschle. He has written a book about healthcare reform, which is likely to be his assignment when he starts in January.

I’ve been musing about the United States and how perfectly designed our current healthcare system is. Perfectly designed, of course, as every system is, to achieve exactly the results it gets, as quality improvement guru Don Berwick famously said. In its own way, it is really rather remarkable. Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate what I mean.

Click here to read Doug (graduate of Rochester's Family Medicine Program) Kamerow's thought-provoking article about health care disparities in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.

Dr. Huang in Iraq

URMC neurosurgeon saves lives in Iraq

Before Dr. Jason Huang became a major in the U.S. Army, he faced tanks at Tiananmen Square, served three years of house arrest, signed daily confessions to the Chinese police, was blacklisted by the government, had himself declared mentally ill, used a fake passport to enter the United States and became a political refugee, an American student, an American citizen and eventually a neurosurgeon at Strong Memorial Hospital.

To understand the story is to know that - behind his calm words and steady hands - there are pieces that can only be lived, not told.

"But here," says the 37-year-old, hands folded neatly Friday morning at the desk in his University of Rochester Medical Center office, "are the highlights.”

Click here to read the entire article by Justina Wang, Democrat & Chronicle staff writer.

Update: Dr. Guzick, Dean, School of Medicine & Dentistry, has recently written an even more extensive account of Dr. Huang's life in his July Newsletter.

URMC's Vega and Fugate

Med students want to help minority communities

Joshua Vega, 23, sees a medical career as one way to break down cultural barriers that affect the Hispanic community. Thomas Fugate, 22, has always been concerned about the high incidence of hypertension and heart disease in the African-American community. As a doctor, he thinks, he'll be able to help solve the problem.

Vega, a St. John Fisher College graduate from Rochester, and Fugate, who's from Fairport and graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans, are first-year medical students at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. Fugate is one of six African-American males in this year's class of 103. Vega is the only student of Puerto Rican descent. Last year's freshman class of 101 had no African-American males (but seven females) and no students of Puerto Rican heritage (but four other Hispanic people). The UR, like other medical schools, is eager to increase the number of minority students, including African-American and Hispanic students. Medical schools in the United States accepted 18,858 applicants this year; 1,334 were black and 1,343 were Hispanic or Latino.

Vega and Fugate told me that some students don't identify their race when they apply because they don't want anyone to think they got in because of their race instead of their ability. But both students believe that their ethnicity will help them connect with disadvantaged populations and that better health care will open other doors. "A medical school isn't just the buildings or the faculty," Vega says. "It's the students, too." Doctors need to appreciate cultural differences in order to practice "patient-centered" medicine, and the students can teach each other about the cultures they come from.

It may well be that doctors from minority communities will spend much of their careers in underserved communities, says John Hansen, the medical school's associate dean for admissions and professor of neurobiology and anatomy. But the real advantage is just what Vega describes. The students, he says, "study together, work together, have lots of opportunities to interact" — and the different perspectives they share will enrich them as doctors.

Fugate was at Xavier when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast two summers ago. He fled with a pair of jeans, a couple of workout suits and the friends he could squeeze into his car. When he got back to school in January, he was stunned by the devastation. "The health care system collapsed," he says, "and that just shouldn't happen. I never want to see people die because they can't get their meds, or be left in hospitals because they cannot be evacuated."

"Medical school is not rocket science," Vega says."If you get in, you are capable of doing the work," Fugate adds."What's hard," Vega says, "is the amount of study every night if you're going to stay on top of it."

Vega's other passion is playing jazz trumpet. "I couldn't learn it on my own," he says. "I only got better by playing with and interacting with other musicians." As he sees it, med school works the same way. As he played jazz at various venues, Vega says, he'd notice that "so many Hispanics, especially from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, barely speak a word of English. ... I can help bridge the language barrier" to the medical community.

And that's why med schools ought to be aggressive about recruiting minority students: Those doctors might bridge not just the language barrier but the health barrier, and in so doing they could help people who are poor and isolated find their way to success.

Mark Hare, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Dean Guzick's Newsletters

Dr. David Guzick, who has been Dean of the U of R School of Medicine and Dentistry for the past several years, writes a very informative bimonthly newsletter that goes out to the faculty. His most recent one is a fascinating essay about the life and career of Dr. Arthur Kornberg who died earlier this year and for whom the Kornberg Medical Research Building is named.

For those of you who may be interested, Dr. Guzick's newsletters are archived here.

I Ask

A blood pressure check,
I put my hand on her wrist
to take a pulse,
a small, hard rectangle
protrudes from her skin
I ask. She says, A bullet.

I ask. She says, My husband shot me.
She is a small woman, quiet, calm.
Five times in the stomach. This bullet
somehow wayward, wandered to her wrist.

In the 50s, when I lived in Virginia, she says,
I had to have part of my stomach taken out.
They weren't sure if I'd live. But I did.

The poet, Mona Arif, recently graduated from the U of R School of Medicine and is currently a pediatrics resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Welcoming New Students

On August 16th from 12:45 to 2:00 pm MCCF will have a booth at the Activities Fair in Flaun Atrium at the Medical School with more information about our group and plans for regular meetings.

Our first student get-together will be on Sunday, August 19th at 4 pm in PBL #1 (Room 1-8405). We'll have Subway sandwiches, drinks, and cookies. Come and bring a friend!

Regular Meetings

Weekly meetings:
If you are interested, there is a small group from the Medical Center meeting for Bible study, fellowship, and evangelism this semester.

Time: Thursday evenings, 7:30 pm
Place: alternating between houses (we e-mail address/directions every week)
What to bring: Decided the week before, so if you come this week, nothing! Just yourself, and a friend if you like.
Subject: This is more of a Bible discussion group, but we do try to stick to Scripture. The passage (1-2 chapters) is picked out each week by one of us. We all try to read & think on the passage during the week, and come with our thoughts, ideas, perspectives, and questions for each other. There have been times in the past when we have deliberately/systematically studied books of the Bible or topics, but this is where we are right now.

Every other week, we meet to discuss a Scripture passage. We don't have an official teacher or leader but try to "sharpen" each other by sharing our thoughts and perspectives on the passage of the week.

On the intervening Thursdays, we host a dinner at one of our houses and invite others to come, specifically those who may not be comfortable with a "Bible study" per se, but who may be interested in church/Christianity. On these days, we do not necessarily study the Scriptures, although we have a passage picked out in case people are interested in discussing it.

We come from various churches in the community and would love to have you join us, whether it is twice a month for dinner, or on a more regular basis. Our group is relatively heterogeneous, with a few seminary students, one or two people who are young, single, and working, a missionary (yup! right here in Rochester - and we need it, too, if you haven't noticed), and med students.

If you need a ride, please let us know.

Questions? Contact Celeste or Falan, or call 512-743-8141. Also, if the timing is bad for you, we welcome input on better times.