A full year of activities helped students at Jefferson Medical College claim the American Medical Association’s Medical Student Section (MSS) chapter of the year award in 2009.
“It was pretty exciting to get all of our hard work recognized,” said Zein Nakhoda, the former president of Jefferson’s MSS chapter.
“We thought we had a good shot. We had good people at all levels with a commitment to the organization,” said then-vice president Dan Pucheril.
At the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year, the students set a number of goals for themselves, deciding that they would only apply for the AMA award if they accomplished these goals.
“We didn’t think we would accomplish them, but we did,” Nakhoda said.
The first step was a big membership push, aimed particularly at first-year medical students. The chapter was able to reach nearly 70 percent membership and now has more than 600 members.
“We got a ton of first-year students to get involved in our committees to help out with events. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to do the things that we did,” Nakhoda said.
Much of the chapter’s work in 2008 and 2009 focused on refugee health. In December 2008, they held a health fair for persons from Burma, including Karen refugees, and Iraq. It included blood pressure, glucose, and vision screenings, face painting for the children, and administration of flu shots.
They also developed a resolution about improving the care that refugees receive, which was passed by the MSS of the American Medical Association and the Pennsylvania Medical Society House of Delegates.
“That was big for us. Our region had a relative dry spell for resolutions, so none of us had ever done one. We took a lot of initiative to get it done,” Pucheril said.
The chapter held two other health fairs in June and August 2008 and raised more than $1,000 at a date auction to help the homeless.
The Jefferson chapter has just as much on its plate this year, and Nakhoda said he thinks they will make another push for the prize.