Press Release
Date: 10-20-09Name: Terri Guess Phone: 973-972-7265
Email: guesstp@umdnj.edu
UMDNJ Invites Students to Become Doctors for a Day
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The Women’s Health Institute of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has organized the Student Doctor for a Day program for nine years, with support from the Foundation of UMDNJ and one of its Trustees, Susan Flynn-Hollander, Of Counsel with the law firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King, in addition to the many UMDNJ schools, people, and programs who volunteer their expertise and time. Other program sponsors include Atlantic Ambulance, Colgate Palmolive and A+ Products.
"The student doctor program gives New Jersey students a chance to interact with UMDNJ students in a friendly and nurturing environment,” said Gloria Bachmann, MD, director of the institute. “For many youngsters, their only interaction with health care providers occurs when they're sick. They usually don't have the opportunity to meet young health care providers in training, to get to know them as people and to interact with them as their teachers,” said Bachmann, who is also interim chair of OB/GYN and associate dean for women's health and chief of the OB/GYN service at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
For the first time, this year, students from UMDNJ’s Schools of Nursing and Public Health will join students from the Newark, Stratford, and New Brunswick medical and dental school campuses and more than 180 volunteers. The student coordinators are medical students LoAnn Heuring and Pooja Raval of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and Sandra Rodriguez and Laura Desimone of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The event is associated with National Make a Difference Day, a national day of action created by USA WEEKEND Magazine, devoted to helping others and to celebrating neighbors helping neighbors. The Student Doctor for a Day Program has received recognition from the national organization for its efforts in supporting US troops serving overseas as well as local shelters and food banks.
“The tremendous growth of the event confirms the high level of interest families and teachers throughout New Jersey have for programs and opportunities to learn more about the possibility of a career in the health sciences,” said Flynn. “Each year we see such positive reactions from children when they are encouraged to believe that their dreams can be realized. It literally changes lives.”
Each participant will leave the event with a bright red backpack filled with a New Jersey Medical School water bottle and stethoscope. Participants are asked, if possible, to bring school supply items that will be collected and sent with various international medical mission groups to clinics in Ghana, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica where several UMDNJ students volunteer.
“We are hopeful that youngsters who never believed that being a doctor was possible for them will see firsthand through this program that doctors come from all walks of life and have one goal---to keep people healthy,” Bachmann said.
For information contact ravalpr@umdnj.edu or call 732-235-7633
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
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