The Pisacano Leadership Foundation—the leadership foundation of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM)—recently selected its 2018 Pisacano Scholars. These 6 medical students follow in the footsteps of 118 scholar alumni who are practicing physicians and 17 current scholars who are enrolled in medical schools or family medicine residency programs across the country. The Pisacano Leadership Foundation was created in 1990 by the ABFM in tribute to its founder and first executive director, Nicholas J. Pisacano, MD (1924–1990). Each Pisacano Scholar has demonstrated the highest level of leadership, academic achievement, communication skills, community service, and character and integrity.
Ry Garcia-Sampson
Ry Garcia-Sampson is a 4th-year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Ry graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies and was part of the Program for Liberal Medical Education. Ry is also currently completing a Master of Public Health at the School of Public Health at Brown University.
Since beginning medical school, Ry has worked on improving health care for community members who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated with the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights and with physicians who work at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. Ry has also worked with amazing social workers through the House of Hope to do outreach and assist clients experiencing homelessness in navigating the medical system.
Ry is also working with non-cisgender community members on an oral history project around health with the goal of informing medical training and improving care for non-cisgender communities. Ry has also worked with free clinics in Rhode Island and serves as a member of the Student Health Council, which focuses on mental health within the medical school. Ry has received a scholarship from the Kaiser Permanente of Northern California for demonstrated commitment to underserved communities.
Joshua Pepper
Joshua Pepper is in his final year of the Joint Medical Program (JMP)—a 5-year graduate/medical degree program at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Josh completed a dual degree undergraduate program at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, earning degrees in Environmental Studies and Civil and Environmental Engineering, respectively. He then spent several years working at Pesticide Research Institute, where he used geospatial analysis to map pesticide use patterns in rural communities of California. Josh also worked during this time as a website developer, data analyst, database architect, cartographer, and independent consultant.
As a medical student, Josh helped run the Suitcase Clinic, a free health center for the local underserved population. During his second year, he planned and facilitated a weekly seminar for incoming students, where they discussed the unique challenges of provid ing health care to low-income and marginally housed communities.
Josh has volunteered for the Ethnic Health Institute for the past 4 years, helping to screen for hypertension and diabetes at a local African Methodist Episcopal Church. He has served as a member of the JMP admissions committee, as a student advisor to the forthcoming Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in Southern California and is now conducting a year-long academic project on best practices for students in longitudinal clerkships.
Emma Richardson
Emma Richardson is a 4th-year medical student at Rush Medical College in Chicago. She graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Pre-Professional Science.
Emma is 1 of 5 students in her class selected for the Rush Family Medicine Program (FMLP), a 4-year longitudinal curriculum with clinical and didactic components for students interested in family medicine. Through the FMLP, she has had the opportunity to establish continuity of care with patients in a community-based clinic.
During her first year of medical school at Rush, Emma was the primary founder of the “Correctional Health Initiative”—a student-led health education program at the Cook County Jail in Chicago. During this time, she has also been involved in research with the Department of Infectious Disease, examining the co-occurring epidemics of incarceration, HIV, and MRSA colonization.
Emma has served in leadership roles of the Rush chapters of Students for a National Health Program and the American Medical Student Association. She is the current student president of the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP) and serves on its Board of Directors. She was recently elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society by her peers for her commitment to service and compassionate patient-centered care.
Michael Rose
Michael Rose is a 4th-year medical student at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He graduated magna cum laude from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota with degrees in Biology and Chemistry. Earlier this year he received his Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
As a medical student Michael received the Biomedical Sciences Award, given to the 3 highest achieving students in the biomedical sciences in the first 2 years of medical school. He received the Dean Paula Temuhlen Scholarship for his academic and leadership excellence, was selected for the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society last year.
Michael was 1 of 4 students selected to participate in MetroPAP, a longitudinal integrated clerkship which focuses on the provision of Family Medicine to urban, ethnically diverse, and underserved populations. As part of this program, Michael organized a Minnesota health worker’s petition against repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by over 200 Minnesota health professionals, and which he delivered to the Minnesota Congressional delegation.
While working on his MPH at Harvard, Michael served as an advocacy volunteer with Right to Health MA. Earlier this year he won an op-ed writing contest at the Harvard Center for Primary Care and was just recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Maya Siegel
Maya Siegel is a 4th-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHU SOM). She graduated magna cum laude with high honors from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and minors in Art History and Peace Conflict and Coexistence Studies. Maya recently completed her Master of Science in Evidenced Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford.
During her first year of medical school, Maya volunteered weekly as an HIV and risk reduction counselor at a local pediatric clinic, where she provided counseling related to HIV, sexually transmitted infections, contraception, and safer sex practices. She also volunteered with a student-run clinic serving uninsured residents in Baltimore and is an abortion doula and trainer with the Baltimore Doula Project.
Maya has served as co-leader of JHU SOM’s Primary Care Interest Group and Family Medicine Interest Group, and the Hopkins Chapter of Primary Care Progress. She served on the student advisory committee for the Primary Care Leadership Track and the Advanced Ambulatory Clerkship, as Outreach Chair for the JHU SOM chapter for the American Medical Women’s Association, and as co-leader of the JHU SOM Jewish Student Association (JSA), the Equality and Medicine Coalition, and the Hopkins Chapter for Medical Students for Choice.
She founded the Syrian Refugee Advocacy Group, which grew from a partnership between the JSA and the Muslim Student Association and included representatives from the School of Public Health.
Nick West
Nick West is a 4th-year medical student at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). He graduated summa cum laude from Oregon State University (OSU) with a Bachelor of Science in Bio-resource Research.
At OHSU Nick developed the Family Medicine Interest Group Mentorship Program, which connects 1st-year medical students interested in family medicine with OHSU Family Medicine Residents. He is a founding member of the Dean’s Student Rural Advisory Group, a program to help guide OHSU policy and programs for rural medical education. Through the program, he and 2 fellow classmates created the Rural Medicine Discovery Program, allowing students to visit a rural community. The visit includes dinner with hospital administrators, a clinical experience with a rural doctor, time to mentor high school students, and an afternoon to experience the area.
Nick was selected for a position in the Rural Scholars Program and is the only member of his class selected to participate in the Oregon FIRST program. In this program students spend their fourth year of medical school in Klamath Falls, Oregon training with the Cascades East Family Medicine Residents. The students are treated like interns and begin their own personal patient panel. Nick plans to return to Northeast Oregon to practice medicine and continue helping with day-to-day operations on his family’s ranch as he’s done since he was young.
- © 2018 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
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