![\"Mohammad](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/Mohammad-resize.jpg\")
Mohammad Hooshmand Zaferanieh M\u201921<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cI was a little disheartened by the way this system was set up and the number of people who were still falling through the cracks,\u201d he said. He started work in the medical devices industry, but \u201cI was denying something that I truly felt compelled to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
To provide the best care for his future patients, Zaferanieh realized he would need to learn more.<\/p>\n
\u201cA large conglomerate of factors goes into someone\u2019s health,\u201d he said. \u201cIt starts off in the social setting, in where they live, which neighborhood they\u2019re in, what type of food they\u2019re eating, how much exposure they have to chronic stress or environmental pollutants. Someone\u2019s well-being starts miles away from the health care setting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica Accardi M\u201919 came to a similar conclusion while working in the emergency department of Greenville Memorial Hospital after earning her Bachelor of Science degree in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cInteracting with people from many different backgrounds, I began to gain insight into the various barriers that impacted individuals\u2019 access to medical care,\u201d she said. \u201cThis left me wanting to gain different skills to help mitigate these barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/accardi-resize.jpg\")
Jessica Accardi M\u201919<\/p><\/div>\n
To continue their education, Zaferanieh and Accardi both found a distinctive graduate program: Furman\u2019s Master of Science in Community Engaged Medicine (MSCEM)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Launched in 2018 with a partnership between Furman and Prisma Health, the 12-month MSCEM program puts students into the field to learn about health disparities firsthand, leading to an advanced understanding of science and population health and all of the social and biological factors that can affect it, said Rachael Bowers, director of the MSCEM program and director of education for The Institute for the Advancement of Community Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n By combining biomedical science, social science and practical experience, Furman\u2019s MSCEM program offers an advantage over programs that focus on only one aspect of health care, said Bowers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not a master\u2019s in biomedical science, we\u2019re not a master\u2019s in public health, and we\u2019re not a service year,\u201d said Bowers. \u201cWe are uniquely giving students some of each of those experiences in a way that helps them understand the challenges in our health care system, but also reflectively understand what inspires them to be part of that system.\u201d<\/p>\n The MSCEM program, which has graduated 66 students in four cohorts since 2018, will begin hosting two cohorts each year in 2023. The fifth cohort, which will graduate in May 2023, will overlap with the sixth cohort, which will launch in January 2023 and graduate that December. Meanwhile, the seventh cohort will begin in summer 2023.<\/p>\n The curriculum of the MSCEM program is designed to parallel the collaborative philosophy of the community health concept, emphasizing interdisciplinary partnerships to improve outcomes, said Bowers. In classes, students explore subjects such as implicit bias, community engagement and health policy, as well as clinical anatomy and physiology, genetics, epidemiology and metabolic biochemistry.<\/p>\n Rachael Bowers, director of the MSCEM program<\/p><\/div>\n Theories from the classroom gel as students begin to see how the concepts play out in real-world community settings.<\/p>\n During a nine-month applied experiential learning course, each degree candidate works with Greenville-area organizations serving under-resourced populations. Fieldwork includes 12 or more hours per week directly observing and engaging with people to gain tangible skills in areas not often served by traditional internship or shadowing opportunities.<\/p>\n Partner organizations include the Greenville Free Medical Clinic<\/a>, FoodShare<\/a>, Project Hope<\/a>, the Upstate Medical Legal Partnership<\/a>, the Prisma Health Center for Family Medicine<\/a> and the Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health and Advocacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the program expands in 2023, students will begin working with Reach Out and Read Carolinas<\/a>, Unity Health on Main<\/a>, New Horizon Family Health Services<\/a>, Triune Mercy Center<\/a> and the Phoenix Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cFieldwork for the MSCEM students is incredibly important,\u201d said Dr. Kerry Sease, a physician with Prisma Health and medical director of the Bradshaw Institute. \u201cAs medicine shifts to focus on better understanding the impacts of the social drivers of health, these experiences allow the students to see firsthand how important community-based interventions can be.\u201d<\/p>\n Accardi, who served at the Greenville Free Medical Clinic as an interpreter, medical assistant and patient intake specialist, found her fieldwork gave her a better understanding of the resources available to the community \u2013 as well as some new personal connections.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gave me a true appreciation for the clinic staff, for the numerous roles they fulfill daily,\u201d she said. \u201cI also enjoyed getting to know the patients on a deeper level and hearing their stories beyond their medical history.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout three terms, seminars feature conversations, case studies and expert lectures, and students work on individual thesis projects to consolidate their experiences. This is when the three curriculum pillars \u2013 biomedical courses, population\/public health courses and the applied experiential course \u2013 really come together, said Bowers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt allows students to think of how what they\u2019re learning in anatomy, physiology, genetics and biochemistry is enhanced and complemented \u2013 not replaced \u2013 by what they\u2019re learning in epidemiology and policy,\u201d Bowers said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re seeing it in action in their fieldwork sites, so they can understand all things at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n The interdisciplinary program is suited to applicants from all backgrounds, Bowers said. \u201cWe have students who were science majors, and we have students who have more of a public health and social sciences background,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not just putting the material in front of them and hoping they can make those connections. We\u2019re leaning on their applied experience and the seminar course to intertwine them.\u201d<\/p>\n Students also receive career counseling and test preparation for professional examinations such as the MCAT, DAT or GRE.<\/p>\n More than half of the program\u2019s graduates entered (or plan to enter) medical school or other training for a career as a health care practitioner. Many of them, like Zaferanieh and Accardi, were accepted to the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville.<\/p>\n As he begins his second year in medical school, Zaferanieh said the in-depth analyses of the social determinants of health has given him a unique perspective among his classmates.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout the first year when we would go through cases and study pathology, I\u2019m thinking, \u2018What things in this patient\u2019s life could they modify to reduce the severity of this state? How could this be prevented from the get-go?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in the discussions we\u2019re having about holistically approaching a patient\u2019s care, I was ahead of a lot of my peers who had previously not been exposed to these social determinants at an academic level.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Furman\u2019s program remains distinctive, community engaged medicine is an emerging \u2013 and increasingly necessary \u2013 field, said Sease.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents who understand the value of community health as it relates to a population\u2019s health will better respond to the country\u2019s health care crisis,\u201d said Sease. \u201cThe benefits of traditional health care paired with the tenets of public health is a win-win for everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mohammad Hooshmand Zaferanieh M\u201921 had always wanted to go into health care, but while getting his bachelor\u2019s degree in biology in 2016, he took a hard look at the system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":18868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,43,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-engaged-medicine","category-graduate-studies","category-top-four-news-4th-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}In the classroom and in the community<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/Rachael-Bowers-Headshot-250-x-200.jpg\")
Forging connections within several spheres<\/strong><\/h4>\n
An emerging \u2013 and essential \u2013 field<\/strong><\/h4>\n