Short version: If you would like to help participate in/establish a free support group designed to help medical students, email Jake Vogel at medtalhealth@gmail.com
Hello everyone,
My name is Jake Vogel and I am a third year medical student from LECOM in Elmira. Back in September 2022, after seeing multiple posts on social media remembering physicians and residences who had taken their own lives to suicide, it became clear that those in the medical profession and the students studying to become the next generation of medicine are facing challenges that are unique and specific to the profession when it comes to mental health. To say the education and training process to become a health care provider is difficult and stressful is an understatement. With the level and quantity of knowledge that must be attained throughout medical school along with the pressures of both in-class and medical board examinations, medical students are faced with insurmountable amounts of stress that are not possible to relate to anyone who has not experienced it firsthand. This need for peer support to medical students led to the creation of the program Medtal Health in October 2022 with the goal of providing as many medical students as possible with free, anonymous peer to peer support.
Medtal Health is an independent free, anonymous support program that meets twice a week on zoom. Each session is one hour with an open zoom link for any medical student to call in to look for support. All cameras and mics are off, everyone who would like to join the call will use an anonymous username when they log in including the student volunteers, and all students who join the zoom call looking for support are placed into a breakout room with a student volunteer who has experience in either the field of mental health or in support groups. Conversations between students utilize the chat feature in the zoom call and during these private conversations, students calling in can talk about anything from ranting about an anatomy exam to feelings of anxiety and depression that can come with medical school education.
Right now we are only operating at my campus, but we are hoping to start branching out to other medical schools and give them access to the free support program.
All we want to do is give support to anyone who could be struggling in silence and give a voice to those who feel they don’t deserve to have one.
If this program is something you would be interested in I would love the opportunity to speak with you about it! Feel free to reach out with any questions at medtalhealth@gmail.com