The Urban Health Project Celebrates 30 Years of Community Involvement

John Duchak, a first-year UC medical student, wore many hats this summer. At times, he was a supervisor, often a mentor or simply a friend to a group of teenage boys who experienced neglect, abuse, trauma and abandonment. 

Duchak was a volunteer for the Urban Health Project, a nonprofit, medical student-run organization that places students who have finished their first year of medical school into summer internships across 18 medical and social service agencies in Greater Cincinnati. The students participate in an eight-week internship. Duchak worked with youth at Lighthouse Youth Development Center in Cincinnati's Avondale neighborhood.

"I would personally recommend it to first-year medical students," says Duchak, who completed his undergraduate degree at Xavier University. "One of the biggest things people do between first- and second-year medical school is research, but I was drawn to the chance to have a more community-oriented experience.

"We are going to have a ton of time in the clinic during third- and fourth-year and the rest of our lives. I thought what was really appealing about the Urban Health Project was the chance to know a group of kids that struggle with mental health and behavior issues and to see them outside the clinic and understand what day-to-day life is really like," says Duchak. "I will be a physician some day and to have the experience in the back of my mind when the patient is sitting in front of me will be very helpful."

Twenty-two students served as interns with the Urban Health Project, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2016. Students work with homeless women and children, mentor and support troubled teens, work with individuals struggling with addiction and offer their talents at free health clinics to name just a few activities, says Gayle Kouklis, a medical student completing her first year and co-director of the project.

"We hope the experiences are something students can carry with them into the medical field and that it's not just a short-term solution but changes their behavior so throughout their career they are more attentive to people who need treatment plans that work around their daily challenges," explains Joe Burkhammer, also a first-year medical student and co-director of the project.

At 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 28, Urban Health Project will hold its annual "Committed to Community Event" in the CARE/Crawley Atrium, to allow interns in the program to offer poster presentations about their work during the summer. Refreshments will be provided and anyone is welcomed to attend. Victor Garcia, MD, a professor in the UC Department of Pediatrics and founding director of the trauma services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, will offer a keynote address.

Kouklis says she hopes to grow the number of students participating in the Urban Health Project, which offers a $3,500 stipend to medical students to help with summer living expenses. Kouklis and Burkhammer are also looking for ways to help project participants turn their summer work into publishing opportunities so that the interns' projects can be used by any service organization hoping to achieve similar outcomes.

First-year medical students, Nick DePriest and Tessa Benanzer, also worked with Cincinnati youth and found the experiences and their exposure to urban populations beneficial. Benanzer assisted abused and neglected girls as part of Lighthouse New Beginnings, while DePriest worked with youth in crisis and in need of short-term housing as part of Lighthouse Youth Crisis Center.

"I came from a very small town and worked with rural underserved populations in Athens," says DePriest, who graduated from Ohio University. "However, I had not worked with inner city populations before, which is a whole different challenge in terms of communicating and breaking down barriers. I think even if I don't work with kids in the future, it's been very helpful in breaking down some of those barriers."

Benanzer, a graduate of Heidelberg University, says she couldn't imagine grappling with many of the issues her girls in the Lighthouse program are facing as teenagers.

"Seeing first-hand the mental health issues they face and knowing their background gives you a new appreciation for these kids," says Benanzer. "I don't know what I am going to do professionally, but no matter what, physicians will always have to deal with mental health issues. Knowing what they are going through and having witnessed it myself will help me better take care of them as a physician someday."