An OUWB sophomore medical student who traveled to Poland last year to study the Holocaust and medicine continues to spread the lessons across the community.
In January alone, a total of 9 students attended and 2 presentations were given.
“Holocaust Education in the Medical Curriculum: The First Medical Ethics Training Trip to Auschwitz” was presented virtually on January 11 by Amanda Bachand, Casey Fillmore, Saini Ketty Reddy, Christine Sarsfield, Lima Stepanian, and Joanna Wasbury.
“The Effects of Death: Lessons from the Holocaust on Coping in Modern Health Care” was presented in person by John Blake, Quinn Simpson and Garrett Peters on January 18th.
Students also gathered with donors special dinner On September 7th, I will be reviewing my trip and sharing details about what I learned from the experience.
Furthermore, Peters and Bachand talked about travel American Society for Bioethics and Humanities at its 24th Annual Meeting, October 26-29 in Portland, Oregon.
Presenting with them at the conference was Dr. Jason Wasserman, professor at the Graduate School of Basic Medicine, who said it was important for students to talk about what they learned from their experiences in Poland.
“The experience of going on a study trip to Auschwitz is important and has a huge impact on the students who go,” Wasserman said.
“But I hope the program will have an impact on other medical students and the wider community who were unable to travel.”
There are other big motivations, too.
“Creating presentations and telling others about their experiences helps them materialize the impact of travel for those who have been there. “It also amplifies their experience.”
Study trip to Auschwitz
In 2022, OUWB will launch transformative new learning opportunities for medical students through OUWB’s Holocaust and Medicine program.
An OUWB study trip to Auschwitz, part of the program, invites students to delve into this unique and tragic period in medical history and critically consider its impact on personal and professional development in the medical profession. intended to encourage.
The first visit was June 13-20, 2022. The 7-day trip revolved around a guided tour of Krakow and the sites of the former Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Special lectures and interactive workshops were also part of the trip.
This was followed by a 7-week seminar for credit as part of the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics (MHCB) 3 course. The seminar developed a project for students to discuss, reflect and disseminate the experience of travel, its history and its relevance to modern medicine. They passed on what they learned at the symposium dinner and other community groups such as OUWB, OU.
Wasserman commended the students for “doing a great job with their presentations so far.” Other opportunities are in the works.
“Historical Gravity”
More than 40 people from various affiliations logged in to watch the January 11th presentation by a group of six students.
The presentation had several purposes.
- Describe the historical context of the Holocaust and how it relates to study tours.
- We review the literature supporting place-based education, critical pedagogy, and place-critical pedagogy.
- Define professional identity formation and apply it to Holocaust education.
- How an immersive learning experience can be beneficial for medical students to become better advocates for the Holocaust and medicine, and how it can extend to leadership development and patient and community advocacy. I will explain.
“During our time in Auschwitz, we stood where these atrocities were committed. I experienced a lot,” Sarsfield said.
“The physical presence made the experience more meaningful and taught me more than textbook reading or videos,” she added.
Wasvary talked about what the group as a whole took from the trip and how they will use the lessons learned. That includes: being an advocate for patients and equality; Oppose injustice. Engage in community outreach. Practice compassion and acceptance. And represent the voice of the patient.
She also stressed the importance of always remembering that “being a doctor comes with power, and with power comes the ability to abuse that power.”
After the presentation, Duane Mezwa, M.D., Ph.D., Dean of OUWB Stefan Schaaf, said that students who participate in the Holocaust and Medicine program “will all be better doctors.”
“Opportunity to act”
| From left to right: Peterson, Blake, Simpson. |
About 30 people attended the second group of presentations, held in person at the Auckland Center at the University of Auckland. This event was sponsored by OUWB. Sith Meisel Center for Judaik Studies and Community EngagementWhen Zekerman Holocaust Center.
The group’s presentation focused on coping with death while drawing parallels between the Holocaust and modern healthcare.
They specifically addressed the psychological effects of death on humans.The group also discussed maladaptation and adaptive coping strategies.
“I hope that if we learn anything from today, we will be able to choose how we react to situations,” Blake said. “We may initially have a human instinct to feel certain emotions when something negative happens. But then we are given an opportunity to act.”
“What’s so important about learning these coping strategies is that if you don’t know them, you can’t make a choice,” he added.
Michael Pytlik, adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland and director of the Cis Maisel Center, says it’s important to understand stress in health professionals.
According to Pitlik, the group effectively combined current medicine with the lessons learned on the OUWB training trip to Auschwitz and the research they did before and after the trip to Poland.
“Our medical students are really good, so I was expecting a great job, but this presentation really made an impact. What they took away was really important.”
Several doctors from Corewell Health East were present.
Radiologist Shashin Doshi, M.D., has attended many presentations on medical ethics, but has never attended a presentation discussing the application of lessons learned from the Holocaust to modern healthcare. I didn’t.
“This was great,” he said. “A lot of what we learn in everyday life can be applied in practice. Neither was there.”
For more information, please contact OUWB Marketing Writer Andrew Dietderich at [email protected].
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