|
|
UT medical student wins honors at state conference |
| By
Jim Winkler |
|
May 15, 2008
|
|
 |
| UT medical student Bernice Rumala posed for a photo with the first-place award she won in the education poster category at the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians’ 2008 Ohio Family Medicine Symposium on Research and Education. |
Bernice Rumala, a UT medical student, won two awards at the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians’ 2008 Ohio Family Medicine Symposium on Research and Education that was held last month in Newark.
She won a first-place award in the education poster category and earned honors with the best overall poster presentation.
Her first poster, “Through the Looking Glass: Mirroring of Professionalism for Medical Students in the Medical Education Environment,” examined medical student perceptions of faculty and staff professionalism. The project addressed the need for professionalism to be demonstrated by faculty and staff members assocated with medical education. It also presented an inaugural survey to evaluate medical-student perception of professionalism among faculty and staff, and offered recommendations from a medical-student perspective on improving professionalism in medical education.
She has been invited to give an educational workshop on the topic to physicians later this year at a conference in Baltimore. Co-collaborators are Dr. Patricia Hogue, UT assistant dean for diversity, recruitment and retention and chair of the Physician Assistant Studies Program, and Dr. Lawson Wulsin, professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and training director of the Family Medicine Psychiatry Residency Program.
Rumala’s second poster, “Recruitment of Underrepresented Minority Students to Medical School: Minority Medical Student Organizations, An Untapped Resource,” was selected as the top poster presentation at the symposium. She competed against practicing family physicians, residents, fellow students and other health-care professionals to earn the honor.
“I initiated this project to outline how minority medical student organizations, such as the Student National Medical Association, can be used as a recruitment strategy to increase diversity in the physician work force,” Rumala said. “The project was initiated as a result of my passion to bring more diversity to the College of Medicine, during a time when there were less than 5 percent underrepresented minority matriculants in a class of 145. The initiatives have proven to be successful.”
The annual symposium provides family physicians, residents and medical students a forum to share best practices, hear presentations on original research, and network with peers and colleagues. Presentations are focused on improving the teaching and research skills of medical students, residents, community preceptors and experienced faculty.
Rumala and Dr. Frederick Cason, UT assistant professor of surgery, published a paper with the same title as the poster that appeared in the September issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association. Rumala said she is grateful for the support of WilliAnn Moore, her community adviser and Toledo NAACP president; faculty adviser Hogue; and members of the College of Medicine African-American Recruitment and Retention Committee.
The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians is a statewide, professional association with more than 4,400 members, including practicing physicians, family medicine residents and medical students.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
