In Camden, a different kind of medical school education

Their experience was unlike their peers' in other medical schools across the nation.

That was by design. 

“Over time, they learned to take pride in that,” Cooper Medical School of Rowan University Dean Paul Katz says of the 43 medical school students who comprise CMSRU’s charter class, based in the City of Camden.

“Coming to a new medical school isn’t for the faint of heart,” says Katz. “You have to be a little bit adventurous. You have to have a degree of self-confidence. You have to have the desire to be part of creating something rather than fitting into something that’s already set.”

The Class of 2016, which graduated during CMSRU’s first Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 9, made its own way, leaving a legacy of service, leadership, innovation, education, grit—and heart—that sets the tone for future classes, Katz says.

They did so in a curriculum that provides students with small-group, self-directed learning and early and continuous patient care experiences that began—remarkably—in the third week of school.

“I don’t think we could have picked a better group of students for our school,” says Katz. “It was the right class for CMSRU at the right time.  They made a huge commitment to medical school and to Camden. They’ll be energized by that for the rest of their lives.”

A medical school of ‘firsts’

Founded in 2012, CMSRU was the first new medical school in New Jersey in more than 35 years and the first M.D.-granting school ever in South Jersey.

A partnership between Rowan University and The Cooper Health System, CMSRU is driven by its mission to develop highly skilled and socially conscious physicians who value a patient-centered, team approach to health care. Its motto—Camden is our classroom…Camden is our home—is the foundation for CMSRU’s approach to medical school education.

Serving the city—through health care, education, service and advocacy—is a key component of that foundation.

The class, which was chosen from more than 3,000 applicants nationwide, will carry their CMSRU experiences with them as they head off to residencies in specialties ranging from family medicine, emergency medicine and pediatrics to thoracic, general and vascular surgery, anesthesiology, radiology and obstetrics/gynecology, among others.

They’ll continue their paths at some of the nation’s finest medical centers, including Cooper University Hospital, Children’s National Medical Center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Boston University Medical Center, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University, Ohio State University Medical Center and the University of Southern California.

Among the 43 CMSRU graduates are 43 distinct stories. Here’s a look at three of them.

Etty Sims

Anesthesiology

Sims, 30, was not expected to be a physician. Such ambitions for women were inconsistent with the beliefs in the Chassidic Jewish community in Montreal, where she was raised.

“I had no role models to look up to,” says Sims, noting that women in her faith were expected to either be stay-at-home mothers or day care providers.

Her husband of 10 years, however, supported her medical school studies, pitching in in every way to care for their two children as she powered through the demanding CMSRU program. Sims, now six months pregnant with her third child, is heading to a career in anesthesiology. She’ll do an internship in pediatrics at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School in Newark and then start her residency in general anesthesiology at Thomas Jefferson University.

Sims chose anesthesiology partly because of her faith.

“I cannot work on the Sabbath for religious reasons,” she says. “Thomas Jefferson is close to home and can accommodate that. I haven’t compromised my religion in any way. I want to be an example for other girls in my community.”

Sims is thrilled to be matched at Jefferson.

“I completed an elective there and loved the program,” she says. “It’s a top program in the region.”

Admittedly nervous when she went on her CMSRU interview—“Not every school would embrace a mom,” she says—Sims was put at ease by her interviewer, Assistant Professor of Medicine Kathleen Heintz, a cardiologist.

“She looked at me and said, ‘I have no doubt you will succeed in medical school.’ I felt validated.

“Medical school was all I expected and more. It’s not possible to prepare for how hard it’s going to be. The service component...that was always the part you just couldn’t forget. It kept it real, humanistic and very enriching.”

During her pediatric rotation, Sims founded Play Pals, a program in which medical students volunteer to spend time every evening with hospitalized children who are alone due to family circumstances.

“I had the idea for it, put it up on the CMSRU Facebook page, and in seconds, I had responses. In our class, everybody is involved and everybody wants to make a difference.”

Jennifer Bleznak

Pediatrics

Bleznak, 25, wanted to attend a medical school “that focused on people.”

“What attracted me to CMSRU was the mission. And that mission aligned to what I believed in,” she says.

But that doesn’t mean she was prepared when she started working in the student-run clinic at 3 Cooper Plaza in her third week of class.

“I didn’t even know which way to face the stethoscope,” she says with a laugh.

She learned. Quickly. They all did.

Working in the clinic taught them how to work with each other, how to interact with patients, and, most importantly, she says, how to listen.

“Hands down, it was the best experience of medical school,” says Bleznak, adding that internist Anna Headly led the clinic deftly, serving as a safety net but also requiring the students to figure things out on their own.

“At the end of our first year of medical school, I got choked up seeing everyone work so well together. I thought, ‘How in the world did we go from knowing nothing to having several hundred people trust us with their medical care in just a few months?’ It was such a testament to Dr. Headly.

“Our patients truly became part of our whole learning network.”

Being a patient herself led Bleznak to medicine. Diagnosed at age seven with then-inoperable severe scoliosis, she wore a body brace from neck to hips nearly 20 hours a day for four years. Her medical team was at DuPont Hospital for Children in Delaware. Going full circle, she’ll return there for her residency in pediatrics.

At age 11, Bleznak had spinal surgery at Shriners Hospital and witnessed firsthand the importance of family and community support for her and her family.

“The doctors and nurses were so important to me and my family. I wanted to be like them.”

At CMSRU, “we had the opportunity to directly influence the direction of the school,” Bleznak says. “Most schools are on autopilot. It was pretty special to help make a medical school.

“We are different people walking out of here. We learned to find a way to fix things ourselves—to find avenues to make things right for patients.”

Imoh Ikpot

Anesthesiology

Interested in “a unique environment,” Ikpot quickly chose to study at CMSRU--and quickly learned first-hand about the challenges Camden residents face. During his studies, he lived in a house behind the medical school.

“That opened my eyes to some of the unique challenges of the community,” he says. “That helped me be a better doctor. To really know what your patients go through, you have to live in their shoes.”

Ikpot realized telling his patients to eat more healthfully was a struggle for some of them. In Camden, he says, the nearest supermarket is 20 minutes away by car. What if they didn’t have transportation to get there or other means to transport healthier food options home?

That was eye opening to him. So Ikpot wrote and received a $500 grant to develop a community garden. Vegetables grown there, planted and cared for by a team of CMSRU students and community members, helped feed a neighborhood.

“In a community with a lack of resources, the garden helped make the community more self-sufficient,” he says.

Ikpot will pursue a residency in anesthesiology at Ohio State University Medical Center. The discipline speaks to him.

“I just love the variety of medicine, along with the instant gratification, that you see in anesthesiology,” says Ikpot, who shadowed physicians in the emergency department at the Yale University School of Medicine in his freshman year at the University of Rochester.

“In anesthesiology, you get the opportunity to work with someone through a difficult aspect in their life. Knowing you helped someone through a difficult time, whether it’s helping them through their pain, helping as they deliver a baby or helping them through surgery, is exciting to me. I like the fast-paced environment.”

Camden is special, he adds.

“I would see people in the corner store and they would say, ‘I’m glad you came to Camden. Camden needs talent. Keep up the good work.’

“We’re leaving CMSRU better than when we came.”