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Amanda Whitehouse |
Second-year School of Medicine student Amanda Whitehouse has been selected as the new chair of American Medical Association’s Membership, Engagement and Recruitment Committee, one of the association’s Medical Student Section standing committees.
“There is a plethora of opportunities through the AMA and MSS. I’m happy to have a role in recruiting future members and engaging with other medical students to make them more aware of what is available to them,” said Whitehouse, a student in the Population based Urban and Rural Community Health track.
As a leader of an AMA standing committee, Whitehouse is a key source of information on activities, programs and positions of the Medical Student Section. As chair of an MSS committee, Whitehouse will lead a team of students focused on bolstering recruitment efforts and engaging with medical students throughout the country.
“The idea is to stretch the reach of the AMA and get information to students who might not otherwise have been aware of the association and its opportunities for students,” she said.
The committee also allows Whitehouse to continue to pursue her passion to educate patients on the importance of health literacy and educate herself on how to best navigate the intersection of health care and policy and become a physician advocate.
A graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree is neuroscience, Whitehouse taught middle school science for a year in Camden, N.J., through the Teach for America program. Whitehouse said she saw firsthand in her classroom how a lack of understanding by patients of the health care system affected her students. She left teaching and entered medical school with the hope of being able to address the same inequities in a vulnerable population through medicine.
“My belief is that education is another global piece of health. We need to learn how policies impact our patients, how we deliver care and how to optimize its delivery. It’s clear to me that physicians can play a role in that capacity,” she said.
