Revamped, reorganized and reregistered.
The Student Leaders in Medicine club has been restarted by three new members with the goal of being as hands-on and experience-oriented as possible. The club came to an unofficial end after its former president graduated, but has its first meeting of the 2019-20 school year on Monday, Nov. 4th from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the CoLab.
Sydney Howell, president, Charlea Kitchen, vice president and Kenzie Helm, secretary, are the driving forces behind this year’s Student Leaders in Medicine club. Helm discussed the benefits the new club will offer members.
“If you’re starting here you are wanting to go on to a really good university for medical school, so a lot of volunteering is what they like to see,” Helm said. “We’ve been talking about certifications and different things we can introduce [members] to so they can get experience. For the most part, when you try to volunteer it’s mostly just desk jobs, unless you [do something like] get certified in CPR, which is something we’re looking into doing. [We want to] give members the opportunity to actually get hands-on experience… I think when they had the club before, they brought speakers in to talk about specific branches of health care, but I think getting more hands-on will add [an important] field aspect.”
Aside from helping students get experience volunteering in various medical disciplines, the club’s leadership team plans on using their new roles to become better at leading and organizing.
“For me, it’s [a chance] to touch up on my leadership skills, because as a nurse once I get my [degree] I am going to be pretty much leading my patients,” Kitchen said. “So, touching up on those leadership skills and getting into the habit of talking freely [is my goal].”
Student Leaders in Medicine won’t only provide volunteer applications that will appeal to college admissions boards and future hiring committees, though: the club leaders also hope to expand members’ views of the medical industry.
“I really want this to be an opportunity for people to look at medicine a little bit differently,” Helm said. “I feel like a lot of [what] I found before was so, like, ‘one specific kind of person goes into this [field],’ like [people who have said], ‘Oh, I’ve known I wanted to do this since I was five.’ If we can kind of explain to people how financial aid would work going into medical school and things like that making it available to more people, it would be a great thing to highlight.”
Helm does not want people to hesitate showing up to meetings and learning what Student Leaders in Medicine is all about. Whether students are interested in particular fields of medicine, the medical field in general or if they simply want to see how it all works, she urges people to come to a few meetings and explore it.
“[My job] is to help everyone achieve their look on health care and find their path with it,” Howell said. “Whether that’s providing the events or the opportunities, I want to do anything that can inspire others.”
Story by Gracyn Shulista