Community Engagement, Development, DEI & Economic Development

To say the 2023 edition of the Lighthouse Free Medical Clinic’s annual Winter Gala was a success would be an understatement.

The first Community Engagement Fair at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo was all about sharing information and making connections.

Fourth-year medical student Daniel Oluwagbemileke Popoola, PhD, hopes his podcast about the true paths to success will inspire and empower listeners.

Guests on the “Debriefing With The DOPe Doctor” podcast share the struggles they have faced and the triumphs they have achieved on their journeys through life.

Trauma surgeons cannot help but understand on a fundamental level the extent of physical damage that a gunshot inflicts on the human body. But they are also uniquely positioned to understand the widespread psychological and social damage that wound inflicts on the individual’s loved ones and community.

When the Jonathan Daniels Chapter of White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL) at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences was planning its inaugural event, it wanted to introduce the organization, honor its namesake mentor, and provide a fun and compelling program for participants to enjoy.

During a Community Town Hall event March 1 at Hopewell Baptist Church in Buffalo, community members seized the opportunity to share their concerns about accessing quality health care.

Of all the organs that can be transplanted, kidneys, by far, are the organ in greatest demand. Kidney failure can take years to develop but there are typically few symptoms until irreparable damage has been done.

Keynote speaker Christopher St. Vil, PhD, advocated for CVI, which focuses on supporting the people who are at the highest risk of engaging in violence.

Inspiring gifted high school students in Buffalo public high schools to pursue careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields — and perhaps become future surgeons — was the aim of a UB Drone STEM competition that took place at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building.

Buffalo native Helene Gayle, MD, MPH, an internationally-known expert on health and humanitarian issues, spoke on a wide range of topics during the 2023 Harrington Lecture June 3 at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The endowment from Timothy and Vicki Murphy will support the Community Health Equity Research Institute and scholarships for nursing students. 

UB faculty member Nikhil Satchidanand’s Movers and Makers program combines exercise and art-making to encourage long-term health.

“I don’t feel that we can talk about gun violence in this country without talking about race,” he said. “Why do I say that? We need to look at who is harmed by gun violence and who is protected. Which stories are elevated and which are minimized.”

Brian H. Williams, MD, a Black, Harvard-trained trauma surgeon, would love to put himself out of a job so he never has to tell another mother their child has died due to gun violence.

Andrea T. Manyon, MD, clinical professor and interim chair of the Department of Family Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, has been appointed chair of the department.

In the midst of one of the worst blizzards in Buffalo’s history, a group of physicians from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences played vital roles in a special Christmas Day delivery.

Jacobs School event was held in memory of Tops massacre victim Pearl Young.

UB’s Community Health Equity Research Institute is launching its first-ever pilot funding program to address health equities and adverse social determinants of health. The institute will fund two projects with a maximum budget of $40,000 each.

The Igniting Hope conference has matured into a movement aimed at bringing lasting change to the region by ending race-based disparities and their devastating impacts.

With NIH funding, UB pediatric researchers will study an intervention they developed for children with asthma in the Buffalo Public Schools.

After a multi-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the D-Link diabetes support group has resumed in-person monthly meetings for teenagers with diabetes.

UBMD Internal Medicine has opened Western New York’s first Long COVID Center. Funded by a grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation with support from the University at Buffalo, the center is accepting all patients, whether they have insurance or not.

The free, student-managed clinic of UB’s health sciences units is now offering dental care, thanks to a CTSI seed grant.

Organized in response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the conference will be a dialogue between academics and the community.

The final event of the “Learning About Your Genome” series aimed to increase awareness of genetics in the African-American community.

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo has received a $40,000 grant from the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) for a novel addition to its internal medicine residency program.

A coalition of community groups and activists is coming together with UB planners and researchers to radically transform one Black East Side neighborhood, and to do it sooner rather than later. 

“The Future of Health” — a forward-looking report jointly released today by the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo and the Jacobs Institute — heralds massive potential for improving health care in the United States.

The Lighthouse Free Medical Clinic’s (LFMC) annual gala fundraiser returned to an in-person event this year and raised $20,000 to help fund the student-run free clinic.

Jennifer L. Haak, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, has been honored by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for her displays of humanism in her work with underserved and vulnerable populations.

Viewing intentional violence as a public health issue has led Robert Gore, MD ’02, down an interesting path, both personally and professionally.

Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences medical students celebrated their multicultural backgrounds at the annual Taste of Culture event Dec. 2 at the Jacobs School building.

Hundreds of children in the city of Buffalo received free backpacks filled with school supplies July 31 as the result of the first Jonathan D. Daniels, MD, Memorial School Drive: The Next Generation of Transformational Leaders.

An annual conference that has received national attention for its work addressing the social determinants of health is being seen this year as one important way for the community to heal and move forward after the devastating, racially motivated mass shooting of May 14.

Recognizing and overcoming systemic barriers preventing Black men from becoming medical doctors was the focus of a documentary film screening and panel discussion at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The Congressional Medal of Honor Society is awarding the prestigious 2022 Citizen Honors Award for Service to Aaron Epstein, MD, a trainee in the general surgery residency.

Medical students with an interest in dermatology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences have been coordinating community outreach events to spread educational and empowering messages.

Stephen T. Koury, PhD, research associate professor of biotechnical and clinical laboratory sciences, has been awarded a $1.3 million grant that will allow high school students and teachers the opportunity to perform genome sequencing of bacteria.

Ebony Omotola McGee, PhD, has seen bias in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) firsthand, and she talked about her experiences and solutions to fix the problem during a lecture and workshop April 7.

Incoming residents at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences had the opportunity to make improvements to the community and get to know their classmates during the first GME Morning of Service.

As the COVID-19 pandemic maintains its grip on the world, physicians at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences continue to step up in a myriad of ways to help the Western New York community.

Fifty-seven original research projects from aspiring physician-scientists were on display at the 2022 Medical Student Research Forum.

The Igniting Hope Conference continues to focus on the urgent challenges of long-standing health disparities in Buffalo’s African American community.

The more than 200 people who gathered in-person and remotely on Aug. 13 for the fifth annual Igniting Hope conference at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences did so in the aftermath of a series of unprecedented losses sustained recently by the community.

The University at Buffalo and UBMD Physicians’ Group have launched the region’s only long COVID registry in order to learn more about the condition and to connect Western New Yorkers with treatment options and the potential to participate in clinical trials.

Women in medicine were celebrated and strategies to overcome underrepresentation in leadership positions were discussed during the UB DoctHERS Annual Symposium.

A Black Men in White Coats chapter has been established at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and is named in honor of the late Jonathan D. Daniels, MD ’98, the school’s former associate director of admissions who died July 4 in a fire at his North Buffalo home.

Mam Deng, MD, has been inspired by the work of many health care professionals he has encountered along his journey from refugee to doctor.

When Aaron Epstein, MD, a trainee in UB’s general surgery residency program, received a call earlier this year that he was being awarded the prestigious 2022 Citizen Honors Award for Service, he thought it was a spam call.

The legacy of the late Jonathan D. Daniels, MD ’98, lives on through the many students he mentored while encouraging them to apply to medical school and those he guided through its rigorous environment once they arrived.

The late Jonathan D. Daniels, MD ’98, had a clear mission in life — to erase the term “underrepresented minorities in medicine” from the health care lexicon.

Residents of the Fruit Belt, Cold Spring and Masten Park neighborhoods and others received expert care for their feet at a recent free clinic organized by surgeons and medical students from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.