Fall 2020
FCE Volunteer Family Update Welcome to 2020–2021! The Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine leadership team and faculty would like to thank our returning Family-Centered Experience (FCE) volunteers for their time and participation in last year’s program and welcome our new volunteers joining in the 2020–2021 academic year. Volunteer families who share their healthcare experiences are an important resource for medical students and provide training that cannot be learned in a classroom. We appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to another great year! Over the past several months, we’ve all gone through changes and adjustments as we navigate COVID-19. What’s stayed the same is our commitment to the safety and well-being of our family volunteers and medical students. Geisinger Commonwealth follows protocols set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Pennsylvania Department of Health. Volunteer families will soon receive the names, photos and brief introductions of their assigned medical students. To communicate with family volunteers, medical students will use phone calls, emails and video chats.
The experience of learning through shared stories from caregivers, families and patients is invaluable. Students learn about disease processes through textbooks and lectures, but experiencing how people deal with real-life circumstances in coping with chronic illness changes the way students see patients for a lifetime. Here’s what a few recent student participants had to say:
“ The FCE was an unforgettable experience. With the pace of the curriculum, it’s easy to get caught up in textbooks and diagnoses. The FCE allowed me to engage with people in a way that no didactic learning can teach. It gave me a glimpse into what the daily impacts of health can have on patients and their support system. This experience reminded me that all the knowledge we are learning is ultimately for one goal: to make someone’s life better in any way we can through physician-patient collaboration.” – Connor Barry, medical student
“ The FCE program is a vital component of my medical education here at Geisinger Commonwealth. I have had the great privilege of listening to my family’s story and building a close relationship with them. Through the program, I could appreciate the importance of patient advocacy as well as building trust and compassion in the patient-physician relationship”. – Marzia Choudhury, medical student
“ The FCE provided me the opportunity to get to know families in the community with chronic illnesses as families and not as their illness. This program will forever impact how I practice medicine. I am so grateful to my FCE family for volunteering to participate in this program.” – Rachel Bockol, medical student