Campus, News

Med. student gives overload new meaning

When Boston University School of Medicine third year student Katie Spina feels overwhelmed by her many responsibilities-fulfilling a dual MD/PhD degree, serving as chairwoman of BU’s Student Committee on Medical Student Affairs and BU MD/PhD Student Government co-chairwoman, tutoring her peers and conducting research-she runs.

‘Honestly, training for marathons is the only thing that keeps me sane,’ Spina said.

Spina now also serves as chair-elect of the Association of American Medical Colleges Organization of Student Representatives board as of this November. OSR, an academic medicine organization, represents all 130 accredited medical schools in the United States as well as the 17 accredited medical schools in Canada.

Spina said even though she previously served as the BU Primary Representative for OSR in the fall of 2007 and as a National Delegate for OSR from 2007 to 2008, she was hesitant at first to run for the commitment-heavy position.

‘When you’re doing research, you can’t really get up in the middle of an experiment and leave,’ Spina said. ‘But ultimately I realized how much I had learned and how much I had grown over the last year by being a part of this organization and all the interactions I had.’

Spina said she will spend the first year of her three-year term as chair-elect, shadowing current chair Matthew Rudy of the Medical College of Georgia and training for her own year as chair. The third year of the term will be spent spent as past-chair, aiding with the transition of the new board, she said.’

Duties during her three-year term include attending conferences and leadership forums across the country with smaller AAMC committee chairs, participating in weekly phone conferences and co-planning the annual AAMC conference, she said.

‘As chair, your job is to be the liaison between students and the AAMC,’ Spina said.’We make sure that the big issues being discussed in AAMC are not only discussed as an administrative board, but communicating to students in the OSR what these issues are.’

The OSR discussed issues such as rising college tuition and how these prices prevent students from going into primary care, she said.’ Doctors who choose to specialize earn higher wages, but primary care physicians are in dangerously low supply.

Spina went through a nomination process during the AAMC annual fall meeting to become chair-elect, OSR Student and Community Service Programs Manager Ally Anderson said. Two people were nominated for the position.

Associate Dean for Student Affairs Phyllis Carr called Spina ‘unbelievably wonderful,’ ‘incredibly bright’ and a ‘powerhouse.’

Spina was responsible for helping change the BUSM grading policy in the 2007-08 academic year by proposing the school eliminate the honors grade from the pass or fail system in the second-year medical school curricula, Carr said.

‘She gathered data from other institutions that had done this, did a survey of residency program directors and basically got information from all of them on whether they thought this was important in the second year to validate applicants for residencies,’ Carr said.

‘She is very dedicated to these things when she takes them on,’ Carr said. ‘She is someone who can initiate change and make it happen.’

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One Comment

  1. This reporter has had fantastic insight into the insanity that is everything medical related. Its amazing how many people still choose pathes like these!