April 28, 2016

Service, mentorship and friendship: Learning Communities 101

Written by
John for webSo you got into med school! Congratulations! I’m sure you’ll be thankful you chose to pursue your M.D. here at UAB, and I’m sure you’re excited to get started.

It won’t be long before your life is going to change pretty drastically.  This will be a brand new season of life for you all, a start into a new profession.  You’re going to learn … a lot!  Most of your learning will come through lectures, small groups and labs, but some of your learning is much more difficult to streamline into a PowerPoint or study guide.  Furthermore, it will be difficult to assess this learning with computerized or written exams.

The type of learning I’m talking about is learning how to live in a healthy and responsible way as a medical student and future physician.  This is where Learning Communities come in.  The goal of the LC program is to equip medical students to be healthy physician leaders one day.  This goal is accomplished through a variety of different things.

Learning Community Structure

Upon your arrival at UAB, you will be assigned to your LC (Think the sorting hat at Hogwarts. smily emoji) Learning communities serve as the basic units of students for small groups, labs, student government, intro to clinical medicine groups, social activities and much more.  These are the people you will be working with for your time here at UAB.  Soon enough you’ll be electing class officers and LC reps.  Each LC will elect their LC reps to serve as representatives to the student senate and to take on some more responsibility with their LC specifically, but we’ll get to that later.

There are 11 LCs at UAB: six for the students staying in Birmingham for clinical years, two for students going to Huntsville, two for students going to Tuscaloosa and one for students going to Montgomery.  Each LC has its own mentor, namesake, mascot, color and personality.  We’re excited to bring you all into the fold this summer.

Community Meetings

Learning communities meet together with their LC mentors — all of whom are faculty here in the School of Medicine — once a month to take a break from studying and consider the topic for that day.  Topics include study skills, ethics, burnout, service learning, team building, finances, etc. – all of which are things you will encounter during your first year alone and need to be addressed.  Learning communities provide a safe environment to talk about these issues as a group and with someone who’s been there to give valuable perspective.

Social Events

One of the responsibilities of the LC reps is to plan a monthly LC social event.  These are opportunities for all the members of the LC to get together outside the school and have some fun together.  These events can range from dinner at a local restaurant, to Barons’ games, to broom ball at the ice rink, to laser tag or bowling.  This is important time for building meaningful relationships with those in your LC, as well as maintaining mental health.  Trust me: we do much more than study together here.
 

Mentorship

Another big aspect of learning community development is the establishment of mentoring relationships.  I already mentioned lead mentors, the faculty members that lead meetings for all the classes. They’re all wonderful and will prove to be a beneficial resource for you. But in addition, learning communities are made up of students from all the other classes.  And they want to help you along and hear from you as well.  As the rising second year class, we hope to make you feel welcome at the School of Medicine and in your LC.  So don’t be afraid to ask questions!


If you’re still reading this, thank you.  It means a lot that my ramblings about LCs can be helpful for you.  Your community members will not only serve as helpful resources but will be the framework in which you do your schooling here.  It’s been a great way to make a big class seem much, much smaller. 

If you have any more questions about LCs, UAB, Birmingham, etc. don’t be afraid to shoot me an email.  I’ll be around this summer to answer questions, or at least hook you up with the right people to answer your questions. I’m looking forward to meeting you! Especially, those of you that are sorted into my LC, the best LC, the Kirklin Wolfpack winky emoji.

Go Pack,
John Snellgrove
UABSOM Class of 2019
snellje@uab.edu