Snma

[gostudy]

If your school has it, what are your opinions of it?

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[Gimlet]

If your school has it, what are your opinions of it?

We have a chapter. I'm haven't ever been particularly interested in participating in the activities/speakers that they host, but every so often they have a pretty kick-ass ethnic food fair. Oh, and they had some guys come in and play African drum music one day too, which was pretty cool.

I've always been confused by the name. It's obviously a group for ethnic minorities (mostly black at our school), but it seems like they went out of their way to avoid any hint of that in the group name.

Anything specific you wanted to know? I don't think our chapter is very active aside from the urban education outreach program they run, but I could be mistaken because I haven't even bothered reading the e-mails from student orgs lateley due to the volume of 2nd year material I don't know yet!

 

[gostudy]

We have a chapter. I'm haven't ever been particularly interested in participating in the activities/speakers that they host, but every so often they have a pretty kick-ass ethnic food fair. Oh, and they had some guys come in and play African drum music one day too, which was pretty cool.

I've always been confused by the name. It's obviously a group for ethnic minorities (mostly black at our school), but it seems like they went out of their way to avoid any hint of that in the group name.

Anything specific you wanted to know? I don't think our chapter is very active aside from the urban education outreach program they run, but I could be mistaken because I haven't even bothered reading the e-mails from student orgs lateley due to the volume of 2nd year material I don't know yet!

Yeah, that's a good response. I ask because no one at my school (except SNMA members) seems to know what SNMA is. And if they do know what it is, they have a vague idea of the organization's purpose. Ironically our SNMA chapter is pretty active. I think a lot of this has to do with the cryptic name. I think people attend SNMA events and think they're attending a black student org event and not specifically an SNMA event. Other black/minority focused orgs in other professional fields have more specific names like NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). So, I've never really got why the "black" organization in medical schools has the name "Student National Medical Association." I'm also trying to make my school's SNMA more integrative toward students of all ethnicities. Most med schools are small/close knit to begin with (compared to college), so 6 or 7 black students siphoning off to do some "black" thing just seems weird and blatantly exclusionary to the other students. I also know of some schools that have a sort of Black Student Alliance that is separate from that school's SNMA. So, I'm just trying to gather info from other students about their sentiments toward their school's SNMA chapter.

 

[Gimlet]

Yeah, that's a good response. I ask because no one at my school (except SNMA members) seems to know what SNMA is. And if they do know what it is, they have a vague idea of the organization's purpose. Ironically our SNMA chapter is pretty active. I think a lot of this has to do with the cryptic name. I think people attend SNMA events and think they're attending a black student org event and not specifically an SNMA event. Other black/minority focused orgs in other professional fields have more specific names like NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). So, I've never really got why the "black" organization in medical schools has the name "Student National Medical Association." I'm also trying to make my school's SNMA more integrative toward students of all ethnicities. Most med schools are small/close knit to begin with (compared to college), so 6 or 7 black students siphoning off to do some "black" thing just seems weird and blatantly exclusionary to the other students. I also know of some schools that have a sort of Black Student Alliance that is separate from that school's SNMA. So, I'm just trying to gather info from other students about their sentiments toward their school's SNMA chapter.

I could be wrong on this, but I think the SNMA is technically a "people of color" organization that is supposed to include black, Latino, etc. med students. I suppose they don't want to alienate the other ethnicities by naming it something specific to black med students. At our school, there's already a separate organization specifically for Latino students, so the SNMA essentially becomes a de facto black student organization because there really aren't any other minority groups left (well, except for the Indians I guess), even though they are de juro multi-ethnic.

 

[MarzMD]

I dont know, but they changed the name of MMEP(minority medical education program) to SMEP as well so I just figured it was to promote a more diverse membership.


On a side note, are you going to the national conference in San Fran?

 

[gostudy]

On a side note, are you going to the national conference in San Fran?

Most probably, yes.

 

[gostudy]

I could be wrong on this, but I think the SNMA is technically a "people of color" organization that is supposed to include black, Latino, etc. med students. I suppose they don't want to alienate the other ethnicities by naming it something specific to black med students. At our school, there's already a separate organization specifically for Latino students, so the SNMA essentially becomes a de facto black student organization because there really aren't any other minority groups left (well, except for the Indians I guess), even though they are de juro multi-ethnic.

You are right, technically SNMA is supposed to represent students of color (read URM) but most often SNMA becomes the de facto black org mostly because other students of color (read Latinos) number in the few if any in US med schools. When I said other "ethnicities" I meant specifically white people, east asians, and south asians. We have members of many different races in our chapters, but our average non URM student has no idea of the function of SNMA.

I'm also trying to make my school's SNMA more integrative toward students of all ethnicities.

 

[MarzMD]

Most probably, yes.

Cool, I will probably see you there then.