Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine (KPSOM) students Bennet Gosiker and Mai Nojima were both awarded a 2024 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Foundation Student Scholarship, which allows both students to participate in the 2024 STFM Conference on Medical Student Education. The highly competitive scholarship, which was presented to only 23 students for 2024, was awarded to several of the brightest and best medical students nationwide and recognizes the students’ solid commitment to academic family medicine through leadership, scholastic, and volunteer pursuits. In addition, the award acknowledges recipients’ strong potential for a career in academic medicine.
“The 2024 Medical Student Education Steering Committee congratulates Mai Nojima, Bennett Gosiker, and Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine on this award,” said Dr. Marisyl de la Cruz, Chair of the 2024 STFM Conference on Medical Student Education. According to the organization’s press release, all STFM Foundation recipients “receive free registration to attend and present a poster at the 2024 STFM Conference on Medical Student Education, scheduled for February 8-11, 2024, in Atlanta, [Georgia].”
Gosiker, who plans to present a poster titled Nota de Voz: Improving Colorectal Cancer Screening Through Personalized Messaging at the conference, was excited to learn of this honor as Payam Sazegar, MD, a KPSOM Family Medicine Specialty Advisor and Assistant Professor of Clinical Science, helped to support his submission. “The poster presentation is focused on colon cancer screening among Spanish-speaking patients,” said Gosiker. “[It] was a project I worked on for the QUEST (Quality, Excellence and Safety Teams) portion of the school’s curriculum.”
QUEST is a longitudinal quality improvement experience that focuses on improving care for a chronic disease through a small improvement intervention that is presented at the end of students’ academic year. “We essentially tested a pilot [by] having patients’ primary care doctor record a message for them in Spanish as a reminder to complete their screening in the hopes that individualized outreach may motivate patients,” said Gosiker. Nojima plans to present a poster titled Implementing a Novel Longitudinal, Community-Informed Medical Student Curriculum to Improve Patient-Centered Disability Care.
Ultimately, these students are looking forward to this unique networking opportunity and the chance to learn from those engaged in Family Medicine teaching and education on a national level as their residencies approach. According to the organization’s website, “STFM is a national community of academic leaders committed to developing a family medicine workforce prepared to serve as the foundation of America’s health care system. STFM members include physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, behavioral health specialists, researchers, nurses, health system executives, administrators, fellows, residents, students, and others involved in the education of family physicians.”
