Siena/Albany Med program works to create good doctors

By ANGELA CAVE- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

As a Siena College pre-medical student in the 1990s, Donna Schue spent a summer in Mexico providing physical therapy for a boy with cerebral palsy. He couldn't afford a wheelchair, so his mother carried him on her back to school.

Dr. Schue spent another summer in rural Alabama, where she joined Catholic nuns at a medical clinic serving 12,000 patients.

Today, Dr. Schue often treats patients for free at a three-person practice in Rushville, a farming village serving New York's Ontario and Yates Counties. She said her experiences in the Siena College-Albany Medical College program in science, humanities and medicine inspired her to work with the marginalized.

The program "was always about taking care of others that had less than you," Dr. Schue said.

To commemorate the program's 25th anniversary, Siena College interviewed alumni for a video, "Our Gift to the World," to use for recruiting and fundraising.

"I didn't realize until I saw that video how important the Franciscan tradition is," said Ed LaRow, a Siena biology professor and the program's director.

The program exposes students to global medicine and Siena's Franciscan tradition through service in developing nations or urban ghettoes.

To date, 225 students have spent summers in 30 different countries, including Kenya, Madagascar, Micronesia and Belize. They work in orphanages or mobile clinics and even backpack through villages for home care visits.

"The students come back changed individuals," Mr. LaRow said.

The program's roots stem from the 1980s, when Mr. LaRow survived a heart attack. Evaluating his doctors, he formed a concept of what makes a good physician: someone who treats patients as people.

Alan Miller, dean of students at Albany Medical College at the time, agreed to develop a program with Siena to form that kind of doctor. In addition to science, students would study humanities, philosophy, history, religion and art for four years before attending medical school.

Mr. LaRow offered another requirement: service. Students work on service projects all year long, from mentoring to bringing science programs into Catholic schools. Rotations after Albany Medical College also serve people in need. Albany Med is starting a service requirement of its own.

Dr. LaRow wants to paint a picture of the ideal med student for his eventual successor.

"I'm 74 years old," he remarked. "I should have retired by now. I'm having too much fun."

About 15 students complete the program each year; last year, 465 applied to enter it. Most ranked in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes, but "genuine, altruistic traits" are important, Mr. LaRow said.

"A lot of us thought medicine was more of a vocation than an occupation," noted Dr. Schue, a Catholic. "Faith is a huge part of what I do. I think it would be very hard to do what we do without a strong faith. People really put themselves in your hands, and that's an amazing and a humbling thing."

Dr. Schue delivers babies, provides hospice care and visits patients in their homes. She's been at the same practice since she finished her residency a dozen years ago.

Her peers are family physicians, an infectious disease doctor who serves an HIV clinic and a plastic surgeon who does reconstructive surgery for breast cancer survivors.

At Siena, Dr. Schue studied how medical students become desensitized as they treat patients. The Siena/Albany Med program prevented that from happening to her.

"It only strengthened my beliefs," she said. "It affirmed to me that all those reasons why you go into medicine never have to leave you. It was a blessing."[[In-content Ad]]