University of New England

Nine Medical Students Earn TOUCH Awards for 50+ hours of Community Service

BIDDEFORD, Maine - Eight current third-year students and one current second-year student, at University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, each accrued more than 50 hours of documented volunteer service over the 2006-2007 academic year,  thus earning a TOUCH award.

Examples of service included working at a soup kitchen, organizing 5K benefit runs, working at the Biddeford Free Clinic, and volunteering at nursing homes.

The TOUCH Awards are national recognition awards presented by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), in alliance with the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents (COSGP), to medical students who volunteer approximately 50 hours of their time during an academic school year. “TOUCH” stands for Translating Osteopathic Understanding into Community Health.

The awardees were: Myra Cyr, Stephen Kelly, Beth Grimaldi, Katie Wetherbee, Suzie McGrorty, Meg Grant, Natalie Maida, Peter Y. Kang, and Mark Umphrey.

Each certificate included the following citation: “Dedicated medical philanthropist, who has generously supported humanitarianism locally, nationally and internationally. Through your responsibility to improve the health and/or well-being of those in our communities, you have accumulated an excess of fifty volunteer hours over the course of an academic year. Your professionalism, competence and selfless service reflects great credit upon yourself, the ‘Fighting Nor‘Easters’ and UNECOM.”

Second-year student Ahmad Yassin, this year’s chair of the Student Government Association’s Professionalism Committee, hopes to triple the number of awardees during the 2007-2008 academic year.

(Press release posted Nov. 27, 2007)