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PreMed Students Focus on Environmental Health Justice

PreMed and PreHealth students attended Igniting Hope 2024: Building an Environmentally Just Community at the Jacobs School of Medicine on September 21.

The annual conference focuses on addressing health equity and the social determinants of health.  It is co-sponsored by the Buffalo Center for Health Equity, The Erie County Department of Health, the UB Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute.

Break-out sessions focused on health equity workforce development, housing/green construction, food systems, advocacy and policy, and maternal health and environment. The CEO for the Center of Environmental Justice gave a keynote address, “Women’s Health Equity, Toxics in Our Environment & How We Can Take Action,”  which highlighted the role consumer goods play in exposure to toxic chemicals.

 

 

Our students volunteered to help run the conference and also helped the Buffalo Center for Health Equity run a Community Day Celebration the night before the conference. A team of Canisius PreMed students were invited by the Buffalo Center for Health Equity to host a nutrition/sugar education table at the celebration to help attendees understand the quantity of sugar contained in commonly consumed food/drink and the impact of excessive sugar consumption on health.

Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, director, PreMedical Center

 

 

Griffs Support Remote Area Medical Mission

More than 35 Griffs, including pre-med, pre-dental, pre-optometry, pre-pharmacy, and PA students, young alumni, and Griff clinicians (James Roland ’04, DDS, Thomas Dobmeier ’06, DDS, Andrew Dobmeier ’16, DDS, Hayden Senn ’16, OD, Nathan Riexinger ’18, DDS and Laura Cavallari Riexinger ’18, DDS) volunteered with Remote Area Medical in Jamestown, NY, September 13 – 15, to host a pop-up clinic providing medical, dental and vision care. Two future Griffs and their fathers also joined our group.

Approximately 240 patients were served, receiving over $185,000 in care.

Three of our current students are training to be Core Volunteers with RAM and will lead their areas at future clinics.

This is the 12th Remote Area Medicine mission supported by Griffs through the Society of PreHealth Professionals student organization and the Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center.

Fun Fact: Nathan Riexinger ‘18, DDS and Laura Cavallari Riexinger ’18, DDS were on our very first RAM mission in 2018 while they were undergraduates at Canisius and were recently married on September 7 in the Christ the King Chapel.

 

Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, Director, PreMedical Center

 

 

PreMed/PreHealth Students Train and Serve as Mercy Doulas

During spring 2024, the Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center offered a Mercy Doula service-learning course. PreMed and PreHealth students, alongside Canisius PA students and local medical students, trained and then volunteered as mercy doulas (end-of-life doulas) at the Sloan Comfort Care Home where they accompany guests during this last journey of their lives.

The medical students were recruited by young Griff, Rachel Kueker ’22, who was in her second year of medical school and co-chair of the palliative care interest group at UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine. Our students are truly “people with and for others” and several continue volunteering at Sloan this summer.

Students were trained by ECMC palliative care physician (Kathryn Grimm ’77, MD) who established the Sloan Home, an ECMC palliative care nurse, a social worker, a retired chaplain, and an alumna who trained as a mercy doula (Colleen O’Hara ’13). Included in the course was a session on pediatric palliative care given by Griff and pediatric palliative care physician, Emilee Flynn ‘08, MD. Students from the course later hosted a movie night to see the new movie, Tuesday, then discussed its connection to what they learned in their mercy doula training.

Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, Director, Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center

Griffs Accepted to Medical School

The Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center is proud to have had 28 Griffs accepted to medical school this year.  Fourteen are attending the Jacobs School of Medicine here in Buffalo, including two sets of twins recently featured in a story on the medical school’s website.

Hannah and Josef Iqbal (pictured above) and Marisa and Camryn Warren, all from the Canisius Class of 2023, were leaders in our premed student organizations: Society of PreHealth Professionals and Minority Association of PreMed Students.  CNN then picked up the story and added some extra cute childhood pictures. Click here to read the story.

Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, Director, Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center

Campus Candid

Thirty-five members of the Society of Pre-Health Professionals student organization along with staff and an alumna volunteered a total of 925 hours with Remote Area Medical (RAM) March 31-April 2 in Ashtabula, OH. With student commitment to our values of magis and service with justice and love, $293,845 in medical, dental and vision healthcare services were provided to 543 patients.

Beyond the numbers, our student volunteers truly accompanied patients throughout the clinic as translators, runners and more. They demonstrated being “people for and with others” in the relationships they built with the patients and each other throughout the clinic. This was in addition to the $1.7 million in services provided in previous Ashtabula RAM clinics where Canisius students have participated since they first started in 2018.

Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, Director, PreMedical Center