Michigan State University College of Human Medicine students Jordan Lippincott and Miriam Rienstra Bareman have been selected to serve on a national committee of the American Medical Association’s Medical Student Section.
The students will fill two seats on the 11-member AMA Medical Student Section’s Member Engagement and Recruitment Committee – Lippincott as vice chair and Bareman as a member.
Both said they were driven by a passion for the AMA and a desire to improve the practice of medicine. Lippincott, a second-year student, said his interest was piqued last year when he attended a meeting of the Michigan State Medical Society and, later, the AMA’s national meeting in Chicago.
“Really, I kind of fell in love with it,” he said.
Bareman, now in her third year of medical school, was serving as recruitment chair for the AMA Medical Student Section’s local chapter when she applied for the national committee.
“I recently had a very wise physician say to me, ‘You’re going to burn out. You have to find things to keep you from burning out,’” she said. “This is one of the ways I’ve found to combat that.”
As committee members, Bareman and Lippincott will oversee the Medical Student Section’s social media efforts, coordinate outreach and recruit other students.
“It’s an opportunity to take the passion that developed in me and pay it forward,” Lippincott said. “I want to pique that same interest in others.”
Bareman, who already holds a Master of Public Health degree from MSU, said she sees her appointment as a way of helping improve how health care is delivered.
“Through the advice of my grandmother, I want to go through this practice of medicine and leave it better than I found it,” Bareman said.
