Third-year medical students at the Charlotte campus recently participated in a community orientation bus ride of the Queen City. The 34 students who participated were given an overview of geographies in Charlotte as they traveled through areas where some of the most medically complex patients live and work.
The mobile orientation was led by Iris Cheng, M.D., clinical professor of Internal Medicine, and Emily MacNeill, M.D., clinical professor of Emergency Medicine. The Reverend Janet Garner-Mullins and James Lee – two community legacy teachers that are lifelong Charlotteans – also participated in the orientation and are historians of two of the neighborhoods that were the focus of the community orientation. Reverend Garner-Mullins and Lee shared insights from their lived experiences with the medical students and provided conversation in a classroom debrief after the bus ride with student questions and feedback.
“The community orientation bus ride is intended to help students learn about historical structures and social drivers of health that impact the patients they will be serving,” said Cheng. “Our goal is to help medical students understand an individual's health as a reflection of community and place and prepare them to treat patients from a more holistic perspective.”
