The Diversity Programming team at the William Beaumont School of Medicine at Oakland University celebrated National Wear Red Day to raise awareness for heart disease among women.

A time was established and students from campus showed up sporting red. The photo will be sent to the National American Heart Association.

“They said once you take the picture just upload it to our Facebook page and I don’t know what they’re going to do with it from there,” Kim Martin, coordinator for diversity inclusion at school of medicine said. “It seems like they’re collecting pictures from a lot of schools. It’s cool to get our name out there.”

This is the third year of having it at Oakland University.

“Women are more prone to heart disease than men and that’s a well-known fact,” Stephanie Swanberg, medical librarian at school of medicine, said. “This is a national event that has been recognized by the American Heart Association. It’s basically a day for people to come together to recognize women’s heart health and raise awareness about the risk factors involved.”

Giving back

The school also provides plenty of opportunities for students to volunteer including; volunteering at the Baldwin Center in Pontiac on Martin Luther King Day, Meals on Wheels, and various other activities to get the medicine students involved in the communities. Gabriel Dominguez, a second year student has had first-hand experience in the field.

“Because we go out into so many diverse communities you actually learn about,” Dominguez said. “You see so many different people and in the future that will make us more well-rounded physicians because we have these experiences with people from all types of backgrounds.”

Dominguez said an advantage at Oakland is that in students first year they can get involved volunteering.

“We like to get our students interacting with the patients they will potentially have. They need to understand their surrounding community,” Martin said.

The school of medicine also does an organ donor registration drive for the entire campus to inspire everyone to get involved in giving back to the community.

“What I get personally is meeting the people because it reminds me that medicine is more about helping people than anything else,” Dominguez said.

The Diversity Programming Team hosts many events throughout the semester as well to get their students involved.

“We try to tie in what our students are studying to the events we have so it’s relevant for them,” Martin said.