Medical student Kirbie Ewens peered over her classmate's shoulder as they watched an ultrasound demonstration.
Ewens, who is from Houston, originally wanted to be a pharmacist because her father is one. She changed her mind, she said, after shadowing a family physician.
"I was really inspired by the work he did and the way he connected with his patients," Ewens said. "I decided that medicine would give me more of a hands-on opportunity to work with people."
Ewens and dozens of other medical students and pre-med students from Virginia, Maryland and Washington universities attended a daylong program Saturday at the VCU School of Medicine.
The program was presented by the Student National Medical Association, a group with a mission of increasing the number of minority physicians and those who take care of underserved populations.
After morning sessions on clinical skills such as suturing and ultrasound techniques, the afternoon provided a dose of something more practical — politics.
A panel of health policy experts, including Sheldon Retchin, VCU vice president for health sciences; and Jack Lanier, chief executive officer of the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority; and politicians Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-3rd, and Del. Jennifer L. McClellan, D-Richmond, talked about local, state and national health policymaking.
"Oftentimes as physicians we overlook the importance of health policy, for health diversity research, for insurance programs that target minority communities," said Priscilla Mpasi, president of the SNMA chapter at VCU.
Retchin said he is vice chair of a national health-care workforce commission that has never met because, while it was included as part of health-care reform, it wasn't funded.
"Here's a commission that was established in September of 2010. … It's a commission that has never met, cannot even discuss any elements regarding the workforce policy."
McClellan said she cast a record number of "no" votes in the General Assembly last week, a period where legislators tackled high-profile gun laws and abortion policy. Physicians, she said, have to make their voices heard when policies that affect health care are being made. Legislators, she said, "are probably making it worse."
"How many doctors do you think come to the committee meetings and talk to their legislators on a regular basis? It's not very many. So here's part of the problem we have. You have public policies that are being made by people about health care who don't fully understand the impact of what they are doing," McClellan said.
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