Campaign Update: MD Student Coaching Program

Photo by Kata Sasvari

Helping medical students thrive and preparing them for the joys and stresses of being a physician are the raisons d’etre of Geisel’s MD Student Coaching Program. The pilot program, launched in 2019, takes a proactive and systematic approach to guide students as they grow personally and professionally throughout their four years at Geisel.

Generous donors are urgently needed to continue this program and to ensure that our medical students always have the guidance and support they need. Along with the Healthy Students, Healthy Physicians program, which provides mental health counseling and supports, the coaching program is a top campaign fundraising priority and vital to creating a healthy, equitable learning environment.

Cultivating Core Values, Building Resiliency

Faculty coaches help students identify their core values and goals, shape their professional identities, develop greater insight and self-awareness, and learn strategies to manage stress, conflict, and other challenges in order to perform at their highest level.

Importantly, the coaching program helps students build strong peer and professional networks—which is especially important for first-generation students (who do not have physicians in their families) and students who are from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine.

Currently funded by a grant from the Kern Family Foundation and support from the Geisel Dean’s office, the coaching program will need robust philanthropic support to continue this vital work beyond 2023.

To learn how you can support medical students at Dartmouth, contact Jon Fitzgerald at 603-646-5235 or visit geiselcampaign.dartmouth.edu.

Written by Jennifer Durgin