News
Summer Program Helps Camden Agencies and UMDNJ Students “Bridge the Gaps”
07-03-08
Jerry Carey
973-972-5000
careyge@umdnj.edu
STRATFORD - Cleaning parks, teaching teens about reproductive health, and helping adults with financial counseling are just a few of the projects that teams of UMDNJ students have launched this summer in the City of Camden.
The six students come from UMDNJ’s Stratford campus and are participating in “Bridging the Gaps,” a summer work/study program that helps three Camden area agencies – Camden AHEC, Planned Parenthood, and the Hope Outreach Center – with service projects that are of value to the community. The students are representing the university’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, School of Public Health and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. This is the second summer that UMDNJ has participated in the Bridging the Gaps program, joining a consortium of area colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel and Thomas Jefferson University.
“Bridging the Gaps helps students gain a broader understanding of the factors that affect health in economically disadvantaged urban communities,” said Dr. Bernadette West, Bridging the Gaps program coordinator at UMDNJ, and assistant dean at the UMDNJ-School of Public Health. “It can be a real eye-opener for the students. They learn what it’s like to confront health problems, both on a personal and community level. They see how resources they might previously have taken for granted simply aren’t available in some communities.”
Each week, the UMDNJ students spend four days working in the community-based agencies and one day in Philadelphia, attending workshops with other Bridging the Gaps work/study students. During the workshops community members and health and social service professionals help the students develop a better understanding of key issues that affect the vulnerable populations living in these urban communities.
UMDNJ is also exploring possible sites for summer 2009. Interested community agencies should contact Dr. Bernadette West at (856) 566-2790.
The Bridging the Gaps program at UMDNJ continues through August 1. Media interested in interviewing students or visiting one of the sites should contact Jerry Carey, UMDNJ News Service, at (973) 972-5000.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
