Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program Newsletter - Winter 2021

Winter 2021

Abigail Geisinger Scholars Update Welcome back!

We hope the holiday break was refreshing and has energized you for more exciting work and scholarship.

Introducing scholars to Primary Care Signature Models

We’re happy to say that formal introductions of mentors and mentees are complete. Just reach out to your mentor whenever you need guidance. Everyone is eager to help you!

On another proud note, secondand third-year Scholars recently began visiting Geisinger’s unique primary care sites. Through visits to various programs, our Scholars will gain an appreciation and understanding of Primary Care Signature Models that demonstrate our system’s dedication to wellness.

Some of the site visits included 65 Forward, the Fresh Food Farmacy®, Geisinger at Home, LIFE Geisinger and the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which provide comprehensive primary care in underserved areas.

Finally, as medical school application continues, we’re amazed and excited by the overwhelming response to the Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program. The sheer number of applicants tells us our program is thriving and that the health and wellness of our neighbors and our communities will be in very good hands in the future.

2021 promises to be a wonderful new year for our program.

Second- and third-year Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine students who participate in the Abigail Geisinger Scholars program recently began visiting unique primary care sites throughout the health system. There, the Scholars got an introduction to Primary Care Signature Models that embody Geisinger’s innovative emphasis on wellness.

From left are Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine student and Abigail Geisinger Scholar Kara Romanowski, MD Class of 2023, and Juliann Molecavage, DHA, associate vice president of quality & primary care services at Geisinger.

“As future primary care doctors, it is imperative that our Scholars experience the myriad ways Geisinger’s approach to patient care is fundamentally different, based as it is on making it easy for all people to stay healthy and to access the support and services necessary for their total well-being,” said Kim Kovalick, DO, assistant dean of the Primary Care Curriculum.

The medical students learned about various programs like 65 Forward, Fresh Food Farmacy®, Geisinger at Home, LIFE Geisinger and the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which provide comprehensive primary care in underserved areas. Through the process, they had a chance to see the positive impacts of the programs and their effect on the community.

Students also met program leadership and gained insight on unique aspects of each program.

“After visiting both the 65 Forward and Fresh Food Farmacy, I am even more excited to be part of the Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program,” said Kara Romanowski, MD Class of 2023. “These programs showed me the unique ways that Geisinger works to provide the most well-rounded primary care for its patients, while considering vital factors such as age and social determinants of health.”

Abigail Geisinger Scholars Update | Winter 2021

Resident mentors While tuition relief makes the Abigail Geisinger Scholars program at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine attractive to aspiring primary care doctors, mentors make it special.

“One thing about the program I really like are the mentors,” said Greg Burke, MD, chief patient Chop experience officer at Geisinger and an architect of the Abigail Geisinger Scholars program. “In medicine, finding a mentor usually does happen organically — but it might not occur until residency. I like that the School of Medicine is proactive and makes it happen while our future doctors are still medical students.”

Kim Kovalick, DO, assistant dean of the Primary Care Curriculum, said the guidance Scholars receive is multilayered, with both attending physicians and residents volunteering to offer support and guidance. “Obviously, the professional advice a student gets from an attending is priceless, but we are also very excited that Geisinger residents have stepped up to fill the ‘near peer’ advisor role that so many medical students find more comfortable.”

To kick off the mentoring experience for Class of 2024 scholars, several Geisinger resident mentors joined their attendings and the medical students for a Senior Leader Seminar. The event, held in October, gave “near peers” the opportunity to share their own perspectives on their specialties and answer questions from the Scholars.

Alex Chop, MD, a resident in the medicine/pediatrics program, chose her specialty because of the sheer breadth of knowledge required to care for both children and adults who often have complex medical problems.

“Often times medical students don’t know too much about med/peds. I only learned about it myself as a third-year medical student. I like the specialty because there’s outpatient work, so you have those long-term relationships that make primary care so special, but also so much inpatient. For example, I work in both the PICU (pediatric ICU) and the NICU (neonatal ICU). Med/peds helps with the access-to-care problem because there’s a shortage of specialists, too — and we can fill both roles.”

Wu

Abbas

For Natasha Wu, DO, deciding on family medicine was easy because she values the specialty’s well-known benefit of caring over the long term for entire families.

She does, however, cite a hidden benefit not often appreciated by students pondering which path to take.

“Family medicine is focused on prevention,” she said.

“And having a public health background, I could see how teaching multiple generations of a family how to adopt healthy behaviors and to take care of themselves from the start can impact entire communities. No other specialty has that power to improve community health.”

Sayeda Abbas, MD, hopes her mentees, like her, find every medical specialty fascinating. If they do, she knows they will choose internal medicine. “In medical school, on every rotation, I’d said, ‘Oh, I love this!’ and then on the next one, I’d say, ‘Oh, this is for me!’ I wanted to do everything, so I chose the specialty that lets me do it all,” she said. Dr. Abbas added that she is part of a new program at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center.

“The advantage there is that we are creating the culture together with our attendings and so we have a lot of autonomy. I’ve learned so much in the few months since I started the program. Once when I was working at Geisinger Community Medical Center, the attendings there couldn’t believe I was an intern — I had that much knowledge and confidence.”

Drs. Chop, Wu and Abbas, as well as their colleagues, have begun working one-on-one with their mentees, but say there is also an informal “mentoring grapevine.” “I am friends with many residents in IM,” Dr. Chop said. “We give each other’s names out a lot. We all want to guide the students, and everyone is happy to help.”

Abigail Geisinger Scholars Update | Winter 2021

Save the date Senior Leader Seminar “Journal Club”: Jan. 13, 2021, 7 p.m.

Featuring Jason Woloski, MD “Introduction to Quality” part 1: Feb. 10, 2021 Introduction to why quality is so important “Introduction to Quality” part 2: March 24, 2021 Going into Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS), Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC), Best Practices Advisory (BPA) and others

Leadership spotlight Alison M. Brodginski, DO, remembers exactly when she became interested in infectious diseases. “In high school, I was selected to attend an educational workshop on how to educate peers on the dangers of STDs and HIV,” she said. “During one of the workshops, I met Bill. He was the first person with AIDS I had ever met. Keep in mind that when I was a teenager, treatment options for HIV were limited and most individuals with HIV/AIDS succumbed to the virus. Bill revealed to me the despair he experienced when he was first diagnosed — his family and friends relayed nothing but hopelessness to him. I felt such a deep sense of helplessness for this man.”

Dr. Brodginski already knew she was interested in medicine. Meeting Bill piqued her interest in a particular virus — and in infectious diseases as a whole. “The human immunodeficiency virus intrigued me,” she said. “I researched every aspect of the virology, transmission, pathogenesis and treatment. For several years, Bill was the primary discussion point when I led the peer education sessions for STDs and HIV. This entire experience was a pivotal moment for me, and I knew without a doubt that not only did I want to pursue a career in medicine, but specifically infectious diseases.

It was plain and simple. I wanted to be a part of the collective effort that could lead to prevention of diseases, effective treatments and the change of societal views/stigmas attached with certain illnesses. Today, I see a lot of patients like Bill. However, the narrative is now one of life, hopefulness and healing.”

Dr. Brodginski said she has never regretted her decision to dedicate her life to combating infectious diseases, especially today as she helps lead Geisinger’s COVID-19 response. “A career in medicine is an honor,” she said. “It may seem cliché, but I absolutely love what I do and could not imagine doing anything else.”

She has straightforward words of advice for Geisinger Commonwealth’s Abigail Scholars, saying, “Regardless of what path in medicine you choose, don’t forget to occasionally stop and ask yourself, ‘Why did I pursue a career in medicine?’ Remember to stay humble, welcome the challenges and treat every patient as you would want your family to be treated. We are all in this together — and I may even one day be your patient!”

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Abigail Geisinger Scholars Update | Winter 2021

Scholar spotlight Oluwaseyi Olulana, MBS ’19 Hometown: Owings Mills, MD Undergraduate/ graduate degree: University of Maryland/MBS from Geisinger Commonwealth Why Geisinger? Growing up in communities with health disparities and having family members who suffered as a result interested Oluwaseyi in medicine. It’s commitment to excellence and innovation that made her choose Geisinger.

Interesting fact: Oluwaseyi is the founder of “Perseverance. Endurance. Patience. Purpose.

Determination.” (PEPPD), an organization that focuses on building community for Christian youth. She also hopes to become a certified spin instructor before she completes medical school.

Oluwaseyi is a member of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine’s MD Class of 2024, and a co-author of “Racial, Economic and Health Inequality and COVID-19 Infection in the United States.” The paper found that there is preliminary evidence of racial, health and economic disparities in the population infected by and dying from COVID-19.

Oluwaseyi is a member of the research team at the Geisinger Neuroscience Institute Decode Lab in Danville, where she worked as a research extern during her gap year. This externship was funded by Geisinger Commonwealth’s Center of Excellence Health Resources and Services Administration grant under the leadership of Ida Castro, JD. At this externship, she worked with the research team to input data for the IMAGENE research study, contribute to the writing of research papers to be published on topics such as disparity and stroke, and further the understanding of stroke assessment within Geisinger under the mentorship of Ramin Zand, MD. She said the most important finding of the study is that risk factors for infection and mortality from COVID-19 differ. The paper states, “Our analysis shows that counties with more diverse demographics, higher population, education, income levels, and lower disability rates were at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection.

However, counties with higher disability and poverty rates had a higher death rate. African Americans were more vulnerable to COVID-19 than other ethnic groups.

Moreover, data on mobility changes corroborate the impact of social distancing.” She was also part of a consortium of writers on a multinational observational study on the short-term risk of stroke and its associated factors among SARS-CoV-2 hospitalized patients.

The papers can also be found here: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7462354/ thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS23523964(20)30315-7/fulltext

4 Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine is committed to non-discrimination in all employment and educational opportunities.