Learning Together in Community

Summer Community Health Assistantship

UMass Chan Students> Apply here for 2025

The Office for Undergrad Medical Education will fund 25 students in the Community Health arm of the Summer Assistantship in 2025.  Students are available to work between July 2 - August 15.  The timeline and process for decision-making in 2025 are as follows: 

• Global Health, 25 students, application deadline Jan 31;  

• Research, 50 students, application deadline March 13;  

• Community Health, 25 students, application deadline April 18.   

Small group (required), Community Group Check in, late July tbd

Students will need to submit posters and recorded presentations by August date to be determined by Mirela Skaka in OUME. Virtual only poster presentation will be a week later.

The Community Health Placement Application Process begins with a 30 minute meeting with Dr. Haley to discuss ideas and determine potential project placements for exploration. We ask that you wait until after this discussion before cold-calling community leaders if you don't have a relationship already.  

Faculty members interested in hosting a student can fill out the OUME form online to be added to the catalog. 

Community partners who'd like to request a summer student should reach out asap to Dr. Haley or Linda Cragin at FMCommunityHealth@umassmed.edu.  

 Application process

We have found over time that most successful summer placements begin with a clear understanding of shared and separate goals.  We encourage students to develop a proposed work plan  together with their community partner and/or faculty advisor, then share the outlined information as the key component of their application for the summer using the Qualtric survey at  https://umassmed.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1H8ISP6gufZCzUq. Thank you! 

1. Learner(s)

1. Name:  

2. Class:   

3. Preferred email:  

4. Cell phone #  

2. Project Supervisor(s) - someone who can comment on the experience and impact of your summer activity

1. Name:  

2. Title:  

3. Email address:  

4. Primary host site:   

3. Brief summary of placement activity:  

4. Learning objectives - what student will gain from experience 

5. Service objectives - what the community/host site will gain from experience 

6. Deliverables – describe and include projected date of completion 

1. Confirmation of match ASAP

2. Report out on Completion of Work Plan and Next Steps for sustainability

3. Poster presentation by August (tentative) as determined by OUME instructions

4. Documentation of engaged activities in campus Collaboratory 

Population and Community Health Clerkship

The Population and Community Health Clerkship (PCHC) is a team-based, interprofessional, community engaged experience required of third year medical students. Students are placed in small groups directed by academic and community preceptors from a range of professions and disciplines. Each team’s experience is unique.  

PCHC2025 Page Link

Goal: The overarching goal of the PCHC is to provide relevant real-world context as students expand their understanding of and ability to act based on public and population health concepts.  

Objectives: In this clerkship, students will: 

● Collect, synthesize, and/or explain relevant population or community-level data  ​

● Learn best practice for connecting patients with interprofessional team members who care for specific populations in the community​

● Use clinician voice for advocacy with a population to improve social and structural determinants of health ​

 ● Apply knowledge in meaningful service toward community-identified goals

PCHC in Transition - Opportunities and Challenges in the Spiral Curriculum 

Big changes ahead for the Population and Community Health Clerkship in 2025, as we expand our time with MS3s from ten consecutive days in September to a new model of twelve days split up into three sets of four days in June, September and March/April:  

• June 24-27, 2024 PCHC Part One 

• Sept 23-26, 2024 PCHC Part Two (incl Engagement Mixer Sept 24) 

• March 31 – April 3, 2025 PCHC Part Three (incl Presentation Day mini-conference Apr 3)

​Hoping to co-lead a team in 2025-26?  Download and complete a team description and submit to FMCommunityHealth@umassmed.edu by April 25! We encourage you to reach out to PCHC@umassmed.edu to connect with the clerkship admin for support as you develop your description. 

Visit the PCHC24 Google Site for details of the last successful PCHC! 

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Some of the more important perspectives I think are worth sharing together as learners:

We're excited to be enhancing the curriculum for our residents to be sure the principles and benefits of a Community Health perspective are represented in the learning and practice of our newest family doctors.  

Community Health Swing: Guided tour for all 12 WFMR residents visiting a range of community partner sites. In 2023, we learned about: 

• Genesis Clubhouse model for supportive employment and living, appropriate for patients with mental health diagnoses, 

• Pernet Family Health Service's role in supporting young families and promoting the standard of universal newborn home visits  

• AIDS Project Worcester social and clinical services including Narcan training

• The Village Afrocentric Community Center programming and plans for supporting alternative health and wellness 

• 2024 Schedule: 

  • 8:30-9:15 Genesis Club

  • 9:30-10:15 18 Chestnut St

  • 10:30-11:30 AIDS Project Worcester w Narcan Training

  • 11:45-12:45 The Village Worcester with lunch from Fantastic Pizza

Community Health Independent Exploration: Each resident is given 4-10 hours of protected time in the first year to further participate in community-based activities, build relationships with key partners and deepen their knowledge of relevant resources.

Examples from 2023:  

• Attending Safe Swim lessons through the YWCA and drafting messaging for use in primary care

• Volunteering in the outreach booth at the Multicultural Health Fair with Derm Interest Group students promoting skin safety in the sun

• Exploring the neighborhood around the health center and learning about community health improvement planning processes

• Volunteering with a community partner agency at a domestic violence vigil in a rural town

• Working on the Road to Care van with the FMCH homeless outreach team

Physician as Leader Year 1: 

Exploring Urban Neighborhoods Using Public Transportation: hands-on exploration of public transportation and local resources

Physician as Leader Year 2: 

Introduction to Community-Oriented Primary Care and Geomapping live session with Drs. Silk and Haley

The Community-Oriented Primary Care free course is co-sponsored by the  American Association of Public Health Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine,  Global Health through Education, Training and Service (GHETS), the University of Gezira, and sponsored in part by the Annenberg Physician Training Program.  Learners are encouraged to sample from the materials in COPC Modules 1&2 based on interest and past knowledge. 

Please enter SCHA-funded and any of your other community-engaged activities in the Collaboratory database at https://he.cecollaboratory.com/umms! 

Enter as a proxy, and invite your supervising faculty or staff member to join and approve it. If you're not working with a faculty or staff person, contact Dr. Haley; she can approve and publish the listing.  The Office for Community and Government Relations hosts tutorial materials on their intranet site. Thanks! 

In development - please join the conversation! What else should be in this outline? 

Knowledge:

Population, community and public health: learners can define, distinguish and explain relevance of each to practicing clinicians; includes Frieden's Pyramid, essential functions of public health, basics of population health management, USPSTF Recommendations

Social determinants and looking upstream: Cliff of good health and structural influences leading to disparities in health through the differential provision of quality health care: includes both Camara Jones videos

Community health improvement planning and assessment: include coalitions and associations, current CHIPs, finding local data through CHAs and connection with local champions through CHNAs

Skills: 

Health literacy: individual level - ensuring materials are appropriate and useful, community level - teaching hands-only CPR, AED use, Stop the Bleed, Narcan, 

Referring to community services:  local emergency food systems, mental health and disability supports,  mandated reporting in the context of structural inequity

Interprofessional care networks: working with interpreters, behavioral health, suicide and overdose prevention, domestic violence intervention teams

Data access and interpretation: include Worc Healthy Baby Collaborative data with insights from GIS (Drs, Shields & Kulkarni), City-Clinic partnership for COVID data equity oversight group and their current work (Drs. Castiel & Alper, German Chiriboga); clinical population health management data (Drs. Scornavacca & Garg and CommunityHelp data team)

Attitudes:

 Building trusting community relationships:  AAMC Principles of Trustworthiness 

Massachusetts Department of Public Health Community Engagement Standards

Mass DPH Strategic Plan to Advance Racial Equity