Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » Second-year Medical Students Help Address Food Insecurity
Education News

Second-year Medical Students Help Address Food Insecurity

By Melissa RohmanMar 7, 2022
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
Second year medical students volunteer at the Onward Neighborhood House. From left to right: Christopher Reynolds, Gina Johnson and Bijan Moazezi. Courtesy of Gina Johnson.

As part of their second-year MD curriculum, a group of Feinberg students recently designed and implemented a community quality improvement project, screening patients for food insecurity at their Education-Centered Medical Home (ECMH) site, the CommunityHealth Clinic, on Chicago’s West side.

Shruti Trivedi, MD, ’03 GME, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine, ECMH site preceptor for the CommunityHealth Clinic, oversaw the project, which was run by second-year medical students Gina Johnson, Christopher Reynolds, Alexander Gorzewski and Bijan Moazezi.

Second-year medical student Gina Johnson helps distribute food to community members at the Onward Neighborhood House. Courtesy of Gina Johnson.

“We decided as a group to do our project on screening patients for food insecurity primarily because this is an issue that has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and because CommunityHealth serves uninsured patients, a group which may face food insecurity at a higher rate than the general population,” Johnson said.

The students used the Hunger Vital Sign questionnaire, a two-question survey that helps healthcare providers identify individuals and households at risk for food insecurity. For patients who screened positive, the students referred patients to food pantries near their home address using online resources such as the community referral platform NowPow and the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s website.

As part of the students’ Community Health Advocacy Initiative (CHAI) project — a recently added component to Feinberg’s MD curriculum — the students also decided to spend an afternoon helping distribute food to community members at Onward Neighborhood House, which provides support, resources and assistance to community members in need on the city’s West Side.

Second-year medical student Bijan Moazezi helps distribute food to community members at the Onward Neighborhood House. Courtesy of Gina Johnson.

“After implementing the initial stages of our project, our CHAI mentor, Dr. Jill Krissberg, challenged us to reach out to a potential community partner in order to gain a deeper understanding of what happens at a food pantry,” Johnson said. “We reached out to Onward Neighborhood House because we thought they would be an ideal food pantry location to refer our patients, as the pantry is located in the same building as CommunityHealth’s microsite where some patient visits take place and many of our patients live in the surrounding neighborhood.”

Johnson said her experience volunteering at Onward Neighborhood House helped her realize how much hard work, time and dedication is takes to run a food pantry, and will help her and her peers better inform their patients about the process of going to a food pantry and what to expect.

In the future, the students said they hope to recruit more medical students from their ECMH site to volunteer at Onward Neighborhood House and expand their patient screening for other areas of need.

“It was so rewarding to volunteer at the Onward Neighborhood House,” said Reynolds. “We want to keep working with them and maybe set up an ongoing schedule to volunteer. Additionally, we would like to screen for other needs like clothing, occupation, or housing and assist our patients in finding those resources that we can connect them with.”

Community Engagement Medical Education Students
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

Medical Education Day Celebrates Mentorship and Equity

Sep 29, 2023

Northwestern Simulation’s In Situ Training Tests Cardiac Arrest Response Teams

Sep 25, 2023

Research Day 2023 Celebrates Scientific Discoveries and Collaboration

Sep 15, 2023

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Medical Education Day Celebrates Mentorship and Equity

Sep 29, 2023

Mapping Neural Activity Patterns and Odor Perception  

Sep 28, 2023

Lloyd-Jones Announces He is Stepping Down as Chair of Preventive Medicine

Sep 27, 2023

Small, Implantable Device Could Sense and Treat Cancer

Sep 26, 2023

Gene Linked to Glioblastoma Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Immunosuppression

Sep 26, 2023
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
20230927_MedEdDay_Sargent_6
20230927_MedEdDay_Sargent_3
20230927_MedEdDay_Sargent_1
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_Patel_2
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_Patel_1
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_Panko_1
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_4
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_3
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_2
20230927_MedEdDay_Posters_1
20230927_MedEdDay_Awards_6
20230927_MedEdDay_Awards_5

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2023 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.