Deep Community Ties Enhance Medical Education – Dr. Allison Brashear, Dean and Vice President for Health Sciences at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine

If you were to make a word cloud based on this episode of Raise the Line, community would be the most prominent term.  For starters, Dr. Allison Brashear was attracted to Buffalo for its reputation as a welcoming community -- a city of good neighbors, as she puts it -- which reminded her of her roots in the Midwest.  She was also encouraged that the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine already had a well-established reputation as a community partner.  And, as she tells host Derek Apanovitch, she has seen the impressive strength of the Buffalo community in the wake of the deadly, racially motivated shooting at a supermarket last May. Part of the school’s response to that tragedy has been developing an anti-racist curriculum and focusing students on addressing health inequities. “There's an elective where students can go provide healthcare in the neighborhood, so they actually kind of walk in a patient's shoes... because if you don't understand the social determinants of health of your patient, then you're not going to be able to make a difference.” Brashear adds that the school’s wide variety of partners -- from the VA to community-based primary care clinics -- further enriches the educational experience. “There's a wealth of opportunities to learn here in Buffalo, and that's one of the things that makes it really great.” You’ll also learn about Brashear’s efforts to boost the number of graduates who stay in the region to practice medicine, the University’s research strengths, and her own work as an internationally renowned researcher in several rare neurologic disorders in this in-depth conversation.

Mentioned in this episode: medicine.buffalo.edu/atp1a3