Student Activities
M1 Gabriel Bendfeldt Kickstarts New Student Org Focused on Rural Health
May. 6, 2021—by Emma Mattson First-year med student Gabriel Bendfeldt first discovered his passion for rural health and medicine when he spent time serving in rural Peru, but he soon found that it applied just as much in a very different setting: Nashville, TN. Per Bendfeldt, VUMC cares for a sizable number of rural patients, but med...
Project VINE offers med students a new avenue for holistic patient care
Apr. 26, 2021—M3s Alan Grusky, Christian Nguyen, and Santiago Angaramo kickstarted a new student organization at VUSM this spring: Project VINE, the Vanderbilt Initiative for Nutrition and Exercise. The student organization, which will work closely with the Shade Tree Clinic and other community partners, uses education, advocacy, and community service to equip med students to provide holistic...
“Med students can’t be sidelined.” Lessons from volunteering during a pandemic.
Mar. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson This month marks a year since the start of the COVID-19 Volunteer Initiative, a drive that included over 300 student volunteers completing more than 2,350 volunteer hours. We sat down virtually with the med students who started it all: M4 Catie Havemann and G3 Thao Le. They share the lessons they learned...
Meet VUSM’s Newest Student Org: Chess Club!
Feb. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson Med student Colin White-Dzuro learned how to play chess as a kid, but he didn’t start playing in earnest until last year— March, to be exact. As the pandemic narrowed social possibilities across the country, White-Dzuro started looking for safe and socially distanced ways to connect with friends. Chess was the perfect...
Latino Medical Student Association leaders talk heritage, antiracism
Aug. 17, 2020—by Emma Mattson When you step on VUSM’s campus, you get to add a new facet to your identity: being a med student. But being a med student doesn’t mean you drop all the other parts of who you are. Anything but! Our culture of wellness at Vanderbilt recognizes that labelling someone a “med student”...
Behind the Scenes: Tracing the 5-year history of our Social Mission Committee
Aug. 3, 2020—by Emma Mattson As any medical student will tell you, medicine is about far more than memorizing anatomy diagrams and symptoms of disease. Being an excellent physician means attending to the holistic needs of your patients—including needs that arise from social factors. As our social mission statement says, VUSM empowers all members of our medical...
SNMA leaders Jackie Antoun and Helen Gambrah lay foundation for coming year, reaffirm priorities
Jul. 20, 2020—by Emma Mattson Community service, mentorship, a commitment to eliminating health disparities— these values all come together in the Student National Medical Association (SNMA). One of more than 170 chapters across the U.S., the Vanderbilt SNMA holds elections every summer to usher in a new executive board. This June, SNMA members elected Jackie Antoun as...
Not Just in June: Vanderbilt leaders offer med students advice for supporting the LGBTQ Community in Everyday Healthcare
Jun. 15, 2020—by Emma Mattson Pride Month, celebrated each June, is normally filled with celebrations, parades, and displays of solidarity with the LGBTQ community. But, especially in a year which will go down in epidemiological history, Pride Month is also a time to face the sobering reality of the health disparities afflicting the LGBTQ community. We asked...
Reflecting on a year of firsts with our Social Mission Committee
May. 25, 2020—by Emma Mattson “This entire situation should serve as a wakeup call in a lot of ways about what I believe are truths that are foundational to social mission.” That’s third-year medical student Will Furuyama, talking about this year’s COVID-19 outbreak. Furuyama served as one of this year’s Social Mission Committee (SMC) co-presidents, and he...
Meet Jaclyn Lee and Cooper March, the 2020-21 Co-presidents of Student Wellness!
May. 7, 2020—by Emma Mattson This April, the Student Wellness Committee (SWC) transitioned leadership: 2019-20 presidents Stephanie Hadley and Shervin Etemad passed the torch to rising fourth years Jaclyn Lee and Cooper March, who will serve as presidents over the next year. Both March and Lee have been involved in wellness since their first months at Vanderbilt....