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Student and Faculty Profiles

Meet Jennifer...

Class: 2009
Hometown: New Canaan, Connecticut
Undergrad: Cornell University
Major: Natural Resources
Program: M.D.

It is now almost a year and a half since I left the floors of UConn’s medical school, and I cannot help but smile—for both the memories created and for the top-notch medical education I received. UConn’s medical school not only provided me with the necessary medical knowledge and clinical skills that have permitted me to thrive at a combined medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of Rochester, but it did so in a supportive and educationally innovative environment. To obtain such a high quality education while submersed in an incredibly supportive environment, is largely due to UConn’s dedication to providing patient care under the tenets of the bio-psycho-social model. Today, it is very easy for patients and their families to become marginalized and defragmented along with our defragmented medical system. A heart may be re-vascularized or a swollen joint may injected with a steroid, but the whole patient—who that person is outside the hospital—is forgotten. At UConn, it is the norm rather than the exception that the primary focus remains on the whole patient and their families.

In addition, UConn’s supportive yet challenging educational environment is also a result of being just the right size. Approximately 80 medical students plus 40 dental students per class permits medical students to be known by their first names; professors to be 150% dedicated to medical student education rather than just their research interests; and permits medical students to be an integral part in the medical school’s constant desire to improve its existing curriculum. As a result, UConn continues to produce medical students who are prepared and equipped with the proper skills to be leaders in our changing health care system.

UConn challenges and inspires its students to study hard. It equally acknowledges the need for medical students to learn how to maintain balance within their own lives. UConn strongly advocates for medical students to remain connected to their families, their hobbies, and a non-medical interests—whether that means creating that gourmet meal for a small group of friends, playing in a local soccer league, or attending those dance class lessons.

As I continue my training in the medicine-pediatrics program at the University of Rochester, I am continually reminded how well UConn prepares its students to succeed in whatever residency they choose to pursue. UConn, as early as the first year, starts to expose its students to the clinical dimension of medicine by putting them in an outpatient community site (student continuity practice. By the time I became a resident, I was already competent at acquiring a medical history, performing a physical exam, and knowing how to interact with patients and families. As such I was and I am able to focus more on strengthening my interpretation, clinical reasoning, application, and management skills.

Consequently, having completed my medical education at UConn—a medical school that believes and teaches that the practice of medicine is both an art and science delivered over time—and in continuing my residency at University of Rochester, which is the institution that actually theorized and created the bio-psycho-social model—it comes as no surprise to me that I am choosing to pursue a fellowship in pediatric hematology oncology with a focus in long-term survivorship. With 80% of children with cancer now surviving into adulthood, I have little doubt that my continued training, which has focused on holistic patient and family-centered care will, over time, serve me well; and to think that all of this preparation began approximately six and half years ago when I took my first step into UConn’s medical school atrium. Again, I cannot help but be grateful; and, of course, smile.