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Ben Sommers raves about the time he spent at Brookside Community Health Center during his third year of medical school at HMS with Hubert Kiefl, MD, as his preceptor.
“It was an amazing clinical experience, and I really learned a lot about the social side of medicine and the value of caring for the whole patient, their families and their community,” he said.
Sommers, who graduates this spring from Harvard Medical School’s MD-PhD program, is one of 75 graduating students to match with BWH’s prestigious Internal Medicine Residency Program this month.
“We’re very fortunate to have such an exceptionally dynamic, talented and hard-working group of students who matched with us this year,” said Joel Katz, MD, director of the Internal Medicine Residency program. Marshall Wolf, MD, Bruce Levy, MD, Maria Yialamas, MD, and other faculty and residents joined Katz last week and warmly welcomed the BWH Medicine Intern Class of 2007-2008 during its annual Match Day reception for local medical students.
Sommers is thrilled to join BWH for two reasons.
As an MD-PhD student for seven years, he has studied and researched the levels of care delivered to various populations and the corresponding socioeconomic factors behind the care. “A lot of what happens to a patient in terms of the care he or she receives is determined before they walk in the door,” he said.
During his studies at Harvard Medical School, School of Public Health and Kennedy School of Government, Sommers has examined Medicaid’s low retention rates and the pressures that force low-income families and their children to lose coverage. While at BWH, he plans to focus his policy research on adults and their coverage while training to become a primary care physician.
That’s the first reason he’s excited about joining BWH.
The second is that he will be joining his wife and high school sweetheart, Melissa Wachterman, MD, MPH, who is a second-year resident in the Department of Medicine.