University of Pittsburgh Receives Grant to
Bring Medical Students to Bradford

By Kimberly Marcott Weinberg
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford


The University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Family Medicine working in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Center for Rural Health Practice, has received a $1 million collaborative grant to bring medical students to the region.

Third-year and fourth-year medical students from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will begin arriving for four-week rotations beginning in May, working with Jill Owens, M.D., and Robert C. Guadagno, M.D.

The five-year grant came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, which promotes better access to healthcare for patients who are isolated. The grant began last year and will continue through 2015.

Doctors at Pitt Medical School wanted to expose their students to a rotation in rural health care, in the hopes that it would whet their appetite to return to a rural health practice after graduating.

“Family medicine out in a rural area is as good as medicine gets,” said Robin Maier, M.D., an assistant professor in the department of family medicine, adding that students will get to see a wide array of health issues in such a setting.

She is also hoping that students will find a way to become involved in the community after hours.

“People come here to be doctors because Bradford is special,” she said.

Before students begin working with physician mentors, the Pitt Medical School will hold a workshop to teach the physicians educational methods to use with the students and how to oversee their time in Bradford.

“This is part of our center’s effort to integrate urban academic opportunities with rural challenges to improve health outcomes and hopefully attract more doctors and dentists to practice in rural communities in the future,” said Dr. Youmasu J. Siewe, director of the center.

A separate portion of the grant would invite students to return to Bradford for eight weeks during the summer to conduct public health research with the Center for Rural Health Practice and other groups.

Those projects could include working on the center’s trial of a program to help curb adolescent alcohol use in a rural area or research with Pitt-Bradford professors.

Physicians interested in mentoring students should call Siewe at (814)362-5054.



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