Photo: Hallie Leo
MD/PhD student Jayne Vogelzang will be sworn in as UMass Chan Medical School’s newest student representative on the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees on the same date she begins the PhD phase of her education: July 1. Each of the five student trustees are elected to the UMass board by their campus student body.
“I’m so excited to be student trustee,” Vogelzang said. “I really love advocating for students on campus. Surrounding yourself with people who are passionate and want to further your same vision makes the most impact here.” She hopes to represent all students as a trustee.
Born in Lexington, Vogelzang studied chemistry at Amherst College and worked as a research coordinator and clinical research manager in the Ligon Lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before enrolling as a student at the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass Chan. Under the mentorship of Nancy Byatt, DO, MS’15, MBA, professor of psychiatry, obstetrics & gynecology, and population & quantitative health sciences, Vogelzang plans to look at how clinics screen expectant mothers for mental health.
“I’m passionate about women’s health. Maternal mental health is still the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the perinatal population,” said Vogelzang, a member of the Population Health Sciences program. “I want to practice clinical medicine because the patients keep me grounded.”
No stranger to leadership roles, Vogelzang proudly serves on the MSTP Student Council and helps conduct interviews for the T.H. Chan School of Medicine’s Admissions Committee.
She runs an Optional Enrichment Elective that allows medical students to shadow nurses on different nursing floors; attend hands-on lectures with nursing professors; and learn how to insert catheters, central lines and work with an IV pump.
“The nurses that I shadowed gave me advice on how to interact with nursing teams and things we can do to save each other time that I’ll take through residency and beyond. I wish every medical student was required to shadow nurses because it was an eye opener for me,” Vogelzang said.
She also volunteers with Rise for Health, an immigrant and refugee clinic in Worcester that provides patients behavioral health support, help navigating insurance and free health examinations.
Outside of her volunteer and academic pursuits, Vogelzang values spending time with her classmates and with her parents in Maine. She was a distance swimmer in college and has lately enjoyed running and painting.
