A team of Pritzker students has won a 2018 Medical Student Service Leadership Project (MSSLP) grant from the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. Stephanie Bi, MS1, Annie Zhang, MS1, and Phillip Hsu, PhD submitted their project, “Building a Leadership Consortium Across Chicagoland Free Clinics” and became the first Pritzker student group in over five years to win this grant.
Pritzker Team Wins AOA Medical Student Service Leadership Project Grant
Annie, Stephanie, and Phil
Photo taken by Yohyoh Wang
The MSSLP grant provides $9,000 in funding over three years to support leadership development in medical students through service learning projects for underserved populations. Award-winning projects must both relate to medical service and provide a means for students to develop their leadership potential in specific, measurable ways.
Stephanie, Annie, Phillip, and other student leaders conceived of an inter-school free clinic consortium that would create a platform for students from all six Chicago-area medical schools (UChicago, Northwestern, Rosalind Franklin, UIC, Rush, and Loyola) to collaborate with the goal of providing more efficient patient care and providing students with leadership training opportunities. The consortium will kick off with an annual conference in the fall and follow up with a series of workshops throughout the year on topics including effective leadership, teamwork, best practices, financial management, and community outreach. Through the consortium, student leaders will have the opportunity to collaborate in a way that allows them to leverage the unique strengths of each clinic and build off the collective progress and accomplishments that the Chicago-land free clinics have had. The team also has future plans for an innovation fund to support novel free clinic projects, curriculum integration, and an online resource repository.