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The
paper, which examines schizophrenia and health disparities,
takes a look at such issues as resistance to insulin by
those stricken with schizophrenia and the differences in
reaction to such medicines between African-American and
white patients and between diseased and non-diseased
patients.
The
paper grew out of research Rumala conducted this past
summer, and will continue to do between school terms. She
received a multi-year fellowship from the APA and worked
with Dr. Henderson at Harvard for three months last summer.
This
presentation follows hard on the heels of two state-wide
awards Rumala received several weeks ago at the Ohio
Association of Family Physicians Research and Education
Symposium.
One of
the awards was for overall best research education poster
presentation. She competed in this category against
physicians and medical residents in a project entitled
“Through the Looking Glass: Mirroring Professionalism for
Medical Students in the Medical Education Environment.”
Rumala’s
project addresses the need for greater professional
accountability among faculty and staff in a medical
education environment and also presented an inaugural survey
to evaluate medical student perceptions of professionalism
among faulty and staff.
As a
result of that project, Rumala has been invited to give an
educational workshop in Baltimore, MD to academic physicians
on medical student perception of professionalism. She was
assisted on that project by Patricia Hogue, Ph.D., assistant
dean for diversity and chairman of the Physician Assistant
Studies Department at UT, and by Dr. Lawson Wulsin, MD,
Ph.D., of the University of Cincinnati Family Medicine and
Psychiatry Program.
Rumala’s
second award came for her project entitled “Recruitment of
Underrepresented Minority Students of Medical School:
Minority Medical Student Organizations, An Untapped
Resource.”
Rumala
initiated this project “to outline how minority student
organizations, such as the Student National Medical
Association (SNMA) can be used as a recruitment strategy to
increase diversity in the physician workforce.
“This
project,” says Rumala,” was initiated as a result of my
passion to bring more diversity to the College of Medicine,
during a time when there were less than five percent
underrepresented minority matriculants in a class of 145.”
And
there’s more … much more.
Rumala
recently published a paper on the latter initiative – the
recruitment of underrepresented minorities – in the
peer-reviewed Journal of National Medical Association. Her
collaborator on this project is Dr. Fred Cason of UT.
But
let’s go back in time a little bit. When we first wrote
about Bernice Rumala two years ago, she had just finished
her first year of study at the College of Medicine where she
is pursuing both a medical degree and a master’s in health
education. She had found the time and the energy during that
first year to revive the then moribund local chapter of the
SNMA in order to satisfy her desire to help bridge the
health disparities gap and to address the scarcity of
medical students of color at the university.
“When I
came here and saw the appalling numbers of underrepresented
minority students, I knew the SNMA could help,” she said at
that time. “It’s an organization of students of color, for
students of color. I wanted to bring those initiatives
locally.”
A
Brooklyn, NY native, who earned her undergraduate degree at
the City College branch of the City University of New York
and started work on her master’s at Columbia University
(compiling a 3.92 grade point average while earning 29
credits in molecular and biophysical studies), Rumala
arrived in Toledo with only two other African-American
students in a total class of 140. The shock of those numbers
drove her to re-start SNMA.
And if
you aren’t yet impressed by Rumala’s achievements, think
about this: her full time gig is that of a medical student …
going to class, working in the lab, studying, taking tests …
kind of a full-time set of activities for most students.
Rumala
has accomplished all of this in a brave new world – for her
at least. This was her first foray into the Midwest and,
fortunately for Toledo, she has become so enamored of the
area that she plans on staying after graduating from medical
school. She has become taken with the Midwest friendliness,
the devotion of her mentor – the NAACP’s WilliAnn Moore and
cars, of course.
Moore
was instrumental in making sure Rumala felt comfortable at
the outset of her arrival, introducing her to the community,
keeping her involved in a variety of activities. Moore even
taught her to drive although as we watched Rumala play
bumper pool with parked cars as she arrived for this
interview, we would guess that those lessons are not yet
complete.
Rumala
has also decided on a specialty – psychiatry. After a period
of flirting with the possibility of entering internal
medicine, psychiatry has won her heart. She helped with the
Community Health Fair last December and that experience
sealed the psychiatric deal for her.
And
somehow, amongst the studying, the extra research projects,
the volunteerism, the recruitment of minority students,
Rumala sometimes finds the time to stay well-rounded and
write a poem or two – an award-winning poem or two that is.
She finished in second place several years ago in the UT
Health Science Campus CultureScape Diversity Poetry, Essay
and Art Contest for her poem titled “Beyond the Cultural
Veil.”
When we
first visited with Rumala two years ago, we were impressed.
This time we knew what to expect … and we were even more
impressed the second time around.
Now, if
she can only overcome her little issue with parallel parking
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