OUWB Holocaust and Medicine program extends reach into community - News at OU

Second-year OUWB aesculapian students who traveled to Poland past twelvemonth to survey the Holocaust and medicine proceed spreading connection astir lessons learned to the assemblage at-large.

In January alone, 2 presentations were made by a full of 9 students who made the trip.

“Holocaust Education successful the Medical Curriculum: Inaugural Medical Ethics Study Trip to Auschwitz” was presented virtually connected Jan. 11 by Amanda Bachand, Kaycee Fillmore, Saini Kethireddy, Kristin Sarsfield, Rima Stepanian, and Joanna Wasvary.

“The Impact of Death: Lesson from the Holocaust connected Coping successful Modern-Day Healthcare” was presented Jan. 18 in-person by Jon Blake, Quinn Simpson, and Garrett Peters.

Students besides gathered with donors astatine a peculiar dinner connected Sept. 7 to bespeak connected the travel and stock details connected what they took distant from the experience.

Further, Peters and Bachand talked astir the trip astatine The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities 24th Annual Conference held Oct. 26-29 successful Portland, Oregon.

Presenting with them astatine the league was Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, who said it’s captious that the students speech astir what they took distant from their respective experiences successful Poland.

“The acquisition of going connected the Auschwitz survey travel is important and it has a tremendous interaction connected the students who go,” said Wasserman.

“But we privation the programme to interaction the different aesculapian students and the larger assemblage who couldn't spell connected the travel arsenic well.”

There’s different large motivation, too.

“Creating a presumption and speaking to others astir the acquisition helps the interaction of the travel crystallize for those who went; it helps them stitchery and concretize the thoughts and emotions that they had portion connected the trip,” helium said. “It amplifies their acquisition arsenic well.”

Study Trip to Auschwitz

In 2022, OUWB began offering a caller transformative learning accidental to its aesculapian students done the OUWB Holocaust and Medicine program.

Part of the programme — the OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz — is designed to punctual students to delve into this distinctive and tragic epoch successful the past of medicine and critically bespeak connected its implications for one’s ain idiosyncratic and nonrecreational improvement wrong the aesculapian profession.

The inaugural travel was June 13-20, 2022. The seven-day travel centered connected guided tours successful Krakow, arsenic good arsenic the sites of the erstwhile Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau attraction camps. Special lectures, and interactive workshops besides were portion of the trip.

A seven-week seminar followed, taken for recognition arsenic portion of the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics (MHCB) 3 course, successful which students discussed and reflected upon the travel experience, the relevance of this past to modern medicine, and developed projects to disseminate what they learned astatine a symposium meal arsenic good arsenic to different assemblage groups astatine OUWB, OU, and beyond.

Wasserman credited the students for doing “a fabulous occupation with their presentations truthful far.” Other opportunities are successful the works.

‘Historical gravity’

More than 40 radical with assorted affiliations logged successful to ticker the Jan. 11 presumption by the radical of six students.

The presumption had respective objectives:

• Describing the humanities discourse of the Holocaust and however it related to the survey trip.
• Reviewing lit successful enactment of place-based education, captious pedagogy, and captious pedagogy of place.
• Defining nonrecreational individuality formation, and applying it to Holocaust education.
• Explaining however immersive learning experiences are beneficial for aesculapian students to go amended advocates connected the Holocaust and medicine, and however that tin widen into enactment improvement and advocating for their patients and communities.

“While astatine Auschwitz, we stood connected the grounds wherever these atrocities occurred — we saw the camps, felt the breeze, touched the barrack walls, yet culminating into an acquisition of the humanities gravity of the Holocaust,” said Sarsfield.

“Physical beingness made the acquisition overmuch much meaningful and taught america much than a textbook speechmaking oregon video could,” she added.

Wasvary addressed the group’s wide takeaways from the trip, and however they volition usage the lessons learned. That included: being an advocator for patients and equality; speaking retired against injustices; engaging successful assemblage outreach; practicing compassion and acceptance; and serving arsenic a dependable for patients.

She besides stressed the value of ever remembering that “being a doc comes with power, and with powerfulness comes the quality to maltreatment that power.”

After the presentation, Duane Mezwa, M.D., Stephan Sharf Dean, OUWB, said the students are “all going to beryllium amended physicians for” being portion of the Holocaust and Medicine program.

‘Opportunity to act’

From left, Peterson, Blake, and Simpson.

About 30 radical attended the 2nd group’s presentation, held in-person astatine Oakland University’s Oakland Center. The lawsuit was sponsored by OUWB, the Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies and Community Engagement, and The Zekelman Holocaust Center.

The group’s presumption centered connected coping with death, drafting parallels betwixt the Holocaust and modern-day wellness care.

They specifically addressed the intelligence interaction of decease connected humans. The radical besides discussed maladaptive and adaptive coping strategies.

“If you instrumentality thing from this today, I would anticipation that it would beryllium that we are capable to take however we respond to our situations,” said Blake. “Initially, we whitethorn person our humanistic instinct that makes america consciousness a definite mode erstwhile thing antagonistic comes up. But aft that, we person the accidental to act.”

“What’s truthful important astir learning these coping strategies is that we can’t take to employment them if we don’t cognize them,” helium added.

Michael Pytlik, adjunct adjunct prof of Anthropology, Oakland University, and manager of the Cis Maisel Center, said it’s important to recognize the accent of the aesculapian profession.

Pytlik said the radical efficaciously made the transportation betwixt medicine contiguous and lessons learned connected the OUWB Study Trip to Auschwitz — arsenic good arsenic the enactment enactment successful earlier and aft traveling to Poland.

“I expected a large occupation due to the fact that our aesculapian students are truly good, but this presumption truly was impactful,” helium said. “The things they took distant were truly important.”

Several physicians from Corewell Health East were successful attendance.

Shashin Doshi, M.D., a radiologist, said he’s attended galore presentations connected aesculapian ethics, but had ne'er been portion of 1 that discussed the exertion of lessons learned from the Holocaust to modern wellness care.

“This was excellent,” helium said. “There are truthful galore things that we larn successful regular beingness that we tin use to practice. (The Holocaust) is 1 of the top atrocities of each clip and I person ne'er adjacent thought astir however it tin use (to practice).”

For much information, interaction Andrew Dietderich, selling writer, OUWB, astatine adietderich@oakland.edu.

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