The UMass Chan Summer in Community (aka Community Health Assistantship) for rising second-year medical students offers summer service learning placements working with a variety of health and human service organizations throughout the Commonwealth. These placements allow students to develop deeper understanding of the social determinants and environmental influences on health as they build relationships with a range of health professionals in the communities they intend to serve.
Summer 2023 dates: June 27 - August 18, 2023
Goals:
Learn about the agency where placed—including mission, funding, staffing, origins, governance – and population being served
Explore relationships between medical providers and community, medical and health organizations
Learn about policy issues relevant to host site
Contribute to the Commonwealth’s health and human service agencies by responding to community-identified needs and working side-by-side with community partners on their priority projects
Funding:
Placements can be funded for 160 hours at $15/hour through the Office of Undergraduate Medical Education using the same mechanism and process as the Global Health, Research Programs - note that you can only draw one salary from the OUME source. The deadline to commit to the SCHA if you plan to use this funding stream is March 31. You will have until mid-May to finalize details with the placement site, but we need to know you want to participate by March 31. Mirela Skaka in OUME will manage the paperwork for these stipends, so watch for email from her. Information will be updated here as it becomes available.
Additional hours may be funded by AHEC for Rural Health, Urban Health and AHEC Scholars, or by other sources identified by faculty, community partners, PIs or students.
Program activities:
SCHA participants are required to meet some requirements of all OUME Summer Programs including:
attend the OUME Summer Program Orientation and
participate in the OUME combined summer program poster session at the end.
Beyond this OUME-designed core of required activity, the SCHA invites participants to:
attend an orientation to community health with your engaged peers
join engagement meetings to share progress and discuss challenges
participate in peer review session with sharing and discussion of poster drafts with other SCHA participants
As the dates and details become known, they will be added to the Timeline page.
Questions may be directed to any of the following:
Heather-Lyn Haley PhD, Assistant Professor, Dept of Family Medicine and Community Health; and Director, Population and Community Health Clerkship; 774-441-6366; Heather-Lyn.Haley@umassmed.edu
Linda Cragin, Director, MassAHEC Network, UMass Chan Medical School Dept of Family Medicine and Community Health; 508-856-4303; Linda.Cragin@umassmed.edu
Kendra Marien, Director, Center for Health Impact. KMarien@centerforhealthimpact.org
Sarah Perez McAdoo MD MPH, Director of Health Equity Education and Practice, UMMS-Baystate; 413-262-5041; Sarah.McAdoo@umassmed.edu
Lisa Clinton, PURCH Education Specialist, UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate; 413-794-7747; Lisa.Clinton@umassmed.edu or lisa.clinton@baystatehealth.org