Bringing Gratitude and Cheer to the Community Table

By Keith Gillogly

The event celebrated the students and community organizations partnered through CommunityConnect, a service-learning program that pairs Jacobs School medical students with local nonprofit and community organizations.

A central part of the new Well Beyond curriculum, CommunityConnect allows students to support community members and their needs while enriching understanding of structural and social determinants of health. 

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, welcomed the crowd of Jacobs School attendees, community members, and staff from the partnering community organizations.

Brashear spoke about the Learning Communities program, which features group “neighborhoods” for medical students to learn and work together, and about the Buffalo changemakers whose names adorn these neighborhoods.

She also emphasized how CommunityConnect instills future connections and community engagement. “Connection to the community is very important to the Jacobs School because that’s how we train future physicians to be engaged in the community,” she said.

Brashear extolled the partnering community organizations for the learning opportunities that they provide medical students. “Thank you for helping our students. Thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for helping us with our Learning Communities. And, most importantly, thank you for being pillars of our new Well Beyond curriculum.”

Michael Lamb, PhD, director of CommunityConnect, echoed thanks for the partnering organizations, saying “you are the heart of CommunityConnect, and I hope you can feel our profound appreciation for you tonight. You are the good neighbors who we’re always talking about.”

Attending the celebration was Evan Baskin-Evans, grandson of the late Dr. Lydia T. Wright. Wright was a trailblazing physician and advocate and Buffalo’s first African American pediatrician, for whom one of the Learning Communities’ neighborhoods is named. Growing up, Baskin-Evans knew well of his grandmother’s nurturing and favorite recipes, but he learned more about her professional achievements and character upon her passing.

“When she passed in 2006, I got to meet all of her patients and people who didn’t really know her as an adult, because she brought them into this world as infants,” he said. “A lot of people spoke at her funeral, and the common theme was compassion, empathy, and putting yourself in other people’s shoes and helping people when they can’t help themselves.”

This year, a collection of second-year medical students were nominated by their CommunityConnect sites to receive inaugural Community Care Awards. Sourav Sengupta, MD, Learning Communities director; and Fatima Nor, program coordinator for Learning Communities and CommunityConnect, presented the awards to the students, who were praised for their motivation, kindness, cheer, insight, and much more.

During the presentation, names and logos from partnering community organizations cycled on screen. Among them were East Side Stewards, Friends of the Night People, West Side Community Services, WNY Mobile OPS, the YMCA, and many others.

In the Jacobs School atrium, an extra long covered table sat dozens of attendees from the Jacobs School and the community side-by-side to “break bread” and enjoy a range of dishes and cuisine. The food was provided by local community vendors, Amira’s Kitchen in Cheektowaga, Brothers on Ellicott Street in downtown Buffalo, and Taste of India on Sheridan Drive in Buffalo.

Through CommunityConnect, second-year medical student Lucas Kruse, who received a Community Care Award, worked with Ronald McDonald House and spent time at the NICU in Sisters of Charity Hospital. He says his time getting to know families there, bringing them coffee and other provisions, was “very meaningful and one of the highlights of medical school.” 

“It was a bonding experience for all of us, spreading some joy throughout the hospital,” he said.

Second-year medical student Julia Quan’s CommunityConnect experience paired her with Partnership for the Public Good, a community-based think tank. She worked with other Jacobs School students gathering community input about a response team providing lower-risk emergency services in the community. 

Quan, who also received a Community Care Award, said her experience led to many open and honest conversations and reminded her about medicine’s core meaning.

“Being able to spend at least a few hours every other week, boots on the ground, talking to people and meeting them where they’re at is a good reminder of why we do what we do,” she said. “Sometimes we forget that the whole reason that we’re studying so hard is to help people.”