Media Advisory: Jacobs School to host Latino Medical Student Association Northeast region conference March 6-8

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo will welcome more than 300 medical students, residents and clinicians March 6-8 for the annual meeting of the Northeast region of the Latino Medical Student Association.

The meeting provides an important educational and networking opportunity for Hispanic medical students and providers as well as those interested in better serving the Hispanic community. The conference is open to current pre-medical students, medical students, residents and clinicians.

Buffalo’s large Hispanic community

“Hispanics are among the fastest growing minorities in the U.S. and there’s a really large Hispanic community in Buffalo,” says Judith Alvarez, co-organizer of the conference with Bryan Carvajal, both third-year students in the Jacobs School. “Having this conference here is instrumental for all of us who have this shared background, but equally important because it allows non-Hispanics to connect about how to better serve their patients. We center the conference not just around being Latino physicians but also on how we care for our community.”

Registration and the conference schedule are available online.

The conference features a research symposium, two exhibitor fair sessions and 40 workshops covering topics ranging from establishing a free clinic, overcoming barriers to bone marrow donation, combining advocacy and medicine in the asylum process, building mentorships and overcoming imposter syndrome. Clinical skills workshops focused on suturing, IV access training, orthopedics and running a code will also be held.

Only in its fifth year, the Jacobs School chapter of LMSA successfully secured support from the school’s administration in order to compete to host the conference. A video the students created made the winning case.

Nearly 50 sponsors, including Johnson & Johnson, the National Hispanic Health Foundation, the National Marrow Donor Program, Stryker Corporation and the U.S. Air Force, are supporting the conference. In addition, representatives from more than 20 medical schools and residency programs including Stony Brook, SUNY Upstate, Brown, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, as well as numerous UB programs, will be on hand to share information about their programs.

Welcoming remarks on Friday evening at the Jacobs School will be made by Allison Brashear, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School; Eugenio Rossi, deputy mayor of Buffalo; and Casimiro Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Heritage Council of Western New York. A research symposium and the first of two exhibitors’ fairs will take place at the medical school, followed by a welcoming reception at Resurgence Brewing Co.

Opening remarks on Saturday morning will be made by David Milling, MD, executive director of the Office of Medical Education, and Emilio Carrillo, founder of LMSA, clinical professor emeritus of medicine and epidemiology and health services research at Weill Cornell and a health commentator at UNIVISION Television Network.

Buffalo physician and current AMA president-elect will give keynote

After lunch, Willie Underwood, MD, president-elect of the American Medical Association and clinical associate professor of urology in the Jacobs School, will deliver the keynote address on “Health Care Policy and Disparities, and Building a Career in Health Policy.”

An expert on health care policy and health care disparities, Underwood has served as a board member and medical adviser to the Love Canal Medical Fund Inc., a past president of the Erie County Medical Society of New York, and a member of the National Medical Association Commission to End Health Care Disparities.

For Alvarez and Carvajal, part of the goal of bringing such a significant conference to the Jacobs School is to help raise the profile of the city and the school.

“Sometimes Buffalo and the Jacobs School, they can fly under the radar and students might not know how much there is to offer on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus,” says Carvajal. “This is our opportunity to show, ‘Hey look, we have all these great things going on here, this is the kind of life you can live here, here are research opportunities for you.’ That is one of our main priorities for hosting the conference here.”

Alvarez agrees. “The right representation matters from all fronts,” she says. “It matters to see physicians and attendings doing what you want to do who come from similar backgrounds in service of the community that brought you up.

“This conference is an opportunity to lift Latino voices and to also lift the community by proxy,” she continues. “It’s a way to put our community at the forefront and I feel very fortunate that the Jacobs School is supporting us in doing this.”