Hello from Gainesville! First, we want to thank the large number of you that reached out to us after the publication of the MHP Newsletter last Fall. We heard back from people that were near (Orlando), far (Iowa), wide (Washington State), and all places in between. One of the common responses that we received was, “I would love to be involved with the program, but how can I do this from afar?” Ms. Thomas and I have thought about this and we asked our current students for ideas of how you might be able to assist their needs and we have come up with the following,
- Starting this fall, each member of the entering MHP class will be assigned an ‘MHPeer.’ This will be a buddy program where each MHP student is paired with an MS1 or MS2. The purpose is to have someone that they can reach out to with random questions or perhaps simply meet for lunch, about once per month. In this vein, we would also like to assign an “Alum Mentor” for each new student. We understand the constraints on your time, so our vision of this is that each of you might respond to a couple emails each month, or have one phone call per month just to chat.
- We are initiating a monthly Skype/Zoom teleconference with our MHP students and all of you. For logistical purposes, it the will be held on the second Thursday of each month from 12:00pm to 1:00pm (EDT/EST), during the Fall and Spring semesters. After a brief introduction, you would be able to converse with the students about your experiences in the program and answer any questions that they have. Our hope is that we can reduce the distances between you and them.
- If you happen to be in Gainesville, we will do a 1-2 hour meeting with the class. We did this last fall and the students loved it. By seeing someone that went through the program and is now a leader in the medical field, it allows them to visualize that for themselves.
- At specific times in their curriculum, our MS1 and MS2 students must go into the community to complete clinical preceptorships. We think it would be wonderful if you could host an MS1 or MS2 that came through the MHP. The specific dates for the 2019-2020 academic year are:
- ICP 2: November 18-22, 2019 (2nd year students, practice focused history, focused physical exam, oral presentation of the information, and practice discussion of differential diagnosis and plan). Open to both primary care and specialties, inpatient and outpatient.
- ICP 1a: December 9-20, 2019 (1st year students, practice focused history, focused physical exam, oral presentation of the information). Outpatient primary care only, as this is their first foray into the clinic.
- ICP 1b: May 4-8, 2020 (1st year students, practice focused history, focused physical exam, oral presentation of the information, and practice discussion of differential diagnosis and plan). Open to both primary care and specialties, inpatient and outpatient.
If you would like to be a preceptor, let us know and we will match you with MHP students that are interested in your area of practice.
- During the summer and winter breaks, allow our MHP students to shadow you for a few days as they try to get a sense of where their medical interests lie. This would work with either students that live in the city where you practice, or, a student might wish to travel to another part of the country to spend a few days away from Florida during their break. It would be during this time that they shadow you.
- During the summer and winter breaks, simply meet up with some of our students for an informal lunch or event. Last summer for example, an MHP alum in South Florida met two of our students for lunch and they watched a World Cup soccer game together. Those two students very much enjoyed that day and speak of it often.
- For our MHP interview days, we would like to show two short (i.e. 5 minutes), self-recorded video clips of you speaking about how the MHP helped or prepared you for medical school, residency, and your career.
- Come back home on October 4-5, 2019 for Alumni Weekend. The MHP Alumni- Student Reception will be on Friday, Oct 4. For more details, https://alumni.med.ufl.edu/alumni-affairs/2966-2/
If any of these activities interest you, please let us know (psayeski@ufl.edu and dthomas7@ufl.edu). Of course, if you have other thoughts of how you would like to be involved with the program, we are certainly open to that as well. Again, our objective in this effort is to promote professional networking opportunities amongst all of you and and our students.
In closing, we thank you for your interest in the program and we look forward to hearing from you!
Regards,
Peter Sayeski and Danielle Thomas