Learning to Serve Others

Amber Smith, M2, Class of 2023 

Throughout this election cycle, our televisions, websites and social media are dominated by one issue: the future of healthcare. Millions of Americans do not have health insurance, which can prevent them from accessing the basic resources necessary for maintaining their health. To bridge this gap, the JayDoc Clinic at KUMC helps provide essential care, such as medications, diabetes treatment, eye exams, general health and community outreach for no cost to patients.

Amber Smith, a second-year medical student at KUMC, is an Executive Director for the JayDoc clinic. She plays an important role in the daily logistics, serves as a liaison between the students and patients, and helps plan the vision for the clinic. Smith’s inspiration for attending KUMC and joining JayDoc came from seeing healthcare inequity amongst her family and wanting to make sure others wouldn’t have the same experience.

Speaking the Truth

How two students shared their medical school experience through podcasts

As of April 2020, Melanin in Medicine has 39 episodes available to everyone free of charge. If you would like to check out Ferguson-Square’s and Osei’s podcast, you can find them by searching for “Melanin in Medicine” on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or a variety of other streaming sources.

MCAT’s. Pre-med classes. Applications. This trifecta of medical school requirements brings chills to the most accomplished of medical students and especially more-so to college students aspiring to become doctors. Pre-med students face many obstacles that can make the application process extremely overwhelming. Often questions arise such as “What classes should I take?” or “Who should I find as a mentor?” Luckily there are two first year medical students at KUMC who are happy to help. First year medical students Kiatana Ferguson-Square and Florence Osei created a podcast called “Melanin in Medicine”, which aims to provide advice to aspiring medical students, discuss their own experiences with medicine, and interview others in the medical field.