A day in the life of a Jacobs School student

First-year UB medical student Shanice Guerrier had to find her own way to medical school. Like many underrepresented students, Guerrier didn’t know anyone like her who had gone through the experience.

“My journey to medical school was rough because I had to figure things out on my own,” she said. “I had to reach out to mentors and figure out what’s the best courses I should take, or what shadowing experiences I should do.”

It’s one of the reasons she wanted to be involved in UB’s chapter of the Student National Medical Association, which focuses on the needs and concerns of minority medical students.

Guerrier was of the students from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences who helped UB undergraduates from underrepresented backgrounds learn what medical school is really like as part of SNMA’s “Shadow a Med Student Day” last Friday.

One of the oldest student-run organizations in the United States, SNMA is committed to supporting current and future underrepresented minority medical students, addressing the needs of underserved communities and increasing the number of clinically excellent, culturally  competent and socially conscious physicians.

“Our mission is to foster more diversity in medicine,” said Sherice Simpson, vice president of UB’s SNMA chapter and a first-year student in the Jacobs School. “Shadow a Med Student Day came out of that mission to show people early on what med school is like and that we (as students) want to be resources.”

Simpson, Guerrier and the other medical student mentors taking part in the event started the day meeting and talking briefly with their undergraduate students. Then it was time to head to class.

Students sat in on lectures on bone marrow transplants and transfusion medicine. They also heard a presentation by Andrew Knapp, a fourth-year medical student at UB who had relied on Upstate New York Transplant Services in his battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

In between lectures and presentations, mentors talked with their students about the medical school experience and offered much-appreciated advice. The Jacobs School students were especially willing to talk about their journey to medical school and provide pointers on how to make the experience easier.

“This was really fulfilling because when I think back from my pursuits toward medical school, I didn’t have someone who I could reach out to that was in medical school,” Guerrier said. “I only had my classmates and whoever was around that could speak to it in my undergrad experience, so being able to give them advice that I wish I had was really fulfilling on my part.

“I think it was a great experience for the undergrads to come here and see what a day is like in med school because you’re pursuing something you won’t actually get until you get accepted,” she said. “Being able to get there beforehand makes it real (in the sense of) ‘oh, I can actually achieve this.’ It was really nice to be able to tell other undergrads something that can help them or put them at ease, because I know their anxiety is really through the roof about applying.”

Simpson also remembers her experience of working toward medical school. She said it was events like Shadow a Med Student Day that kept her dream of medical school alive.

“I think this is very, very important,” she said. “I remember being pre-med at the University at Rochester and I used to go to SNMA events where we would come in and spend a day at the med school, do workshops and listen to speakers. That really inspired me to keep going after that dream of going into medicine. When you can connect with someone one on one, or see someone like you doing what you want to do, it shows you it’s possible.”

Undergraduate students were also thankful for the experience. They said seeing a class firsthand and talking with students from a similar background was more valuable than any other information they could get before applying to medical school.

“I think this was a great event for undergraduates of a minority background to come to the med school,” said Rosie Salomon, a nuclear medicine technology major. “This really validated my decision to go to med school. It’s definitely different coming here and seeing the smaller classes where everyone is interacting with each other. It was good to come here and actually experience what they go through.”

Along with the actual experience of attending medical school classes, Dara Awoyomi, an occupational therapy student at UB, said the advice she received was just as important.

“It was interesting to see the whole aspect of what a typical med school student day is like regularly,” Awoyomi said. “I’m not even sure if I want to go to med school yet, but it was nice to see how it is daily, and how well you have to be disciplined.

“It was definitely nice to relate to someone who’s been through that experience and ask them about study techniques, how she’s doing a lot of flashcards and connecting topics to each other,” Awoyomi said. She (Awoyomi’s mentor) also went to another school and then came here, so it’s nice to see something else different like that.”

Both Simpson and Guerrier said the diversity of the first-year class at the Jacobs School has improved their education in remarkable ways, which is why lifting up underrepresented undergraduates through programs like this continues to be important.

“We are really blessed that our class is the most diverse class that UB has had at the med school this year,” Simpson said. “I like it because I feel like I’m learning from other people’s backgrounds. In medicine, we’re always working with different patients that have a different lifestyle or culture than us. Learning with people who are coming from all of those places fosters that environment because there are things I would never know about if I wasn’t working side by side with someone in that group.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Guerrier added. “When you’re amongst so many diverse students, it makes you such a well-rounded person. It’s not as fun seeing the same thing over and over; you’re more interested in things you don’t know. It’s really nice to have that diverse class because of the many different experiences.”

The day wrapped up with a Soul, Food and Sound celebration of Black History Month. The noontime event, held in the Jacobs School atrium in collaboration with the school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, highlighted African-American cuisine and music. Students enjoyed each other’s company as they took time away from the busy semester and enjoyed the new connections they had made.

“I feel really thankful,” Salomon said. “You don’t really hear about a program like this every day where there’s other students that actually want to help people who aren’t there yet and it means a lot.”