Wahl Society

Director: Isaac Opole, M.D.

Associate Directors: Allen Rawitch, Ph.D., Sarah Folscroft, M.D.

Student Leaders: Katie Tran, Samuel Hund

NEXT MEETING:
January 17 Lunch Meeting: "Summer Opportunities" Student Panel 
Noon-1pm, 1014 Orr Major. Register online 

February 8 Social Event "A Night at the Nelson: Tour of the Nelson-Atkins Museum"
6pm Register online 

Wahl Society Tours the Boulevard Brewery

Wahl Society: Fall 2012

By Wahl Society Student Leader Samuel Hund

Wahl Society welcomed in a class of 33 first year medical students for the 2012-13 school year. We are excited to continue providing fun and educational events and gatherings for the year ahead. We began the fall with our annual Welcome Back event where students and faculty from every society congregated to meet and socialize with one another. This was soon followed by our first lunch meeting of the year where Dr. Larry Long and Jen Dolson spoke about procrastination and study habits. Both events were very successful.

As future physicians and leaders in our community it is important to be up to date and informed about health policy. While in school many medical students find it difficult to do anything but focus on the curriculum. We view our society meetings as non-stressful events where our members can learn valuable information outside of the lecture hall. For our September meeting we wanted to have a speaker educated in the current changing health care of the country and more specifically our state of Kansas.

From left to right: M. Suzanne Schrandt, JD, Katie Tran, Wahl society co-president, Isaac Opole, MD, PhD, FACP, Wahl society Director 

We welcomed in the Kansas Health Institute's Senior Analyst and StrategyTeam Leader, Suzanne Schrandt, J.D. The Kansas Health Institute is an independent, non-profit and most importantly nonpartisan organization aimed to educate and inform Kansas policy makers on the health of Kansans. In her work, Schrandt has been conducting and analyzing research related to health care, and has been actively monitoring the state health policy since 2010 when The Affordable Care Act was put into law.

The event was well attended by both students and faculty and the information given was of tremendous value. It is rare to see nonpartisan facts and figures in today's media, and Schrandt's lecture delivered just that. It was surprising to see how much has already changed in our State's health care, and encouraging to see that others are working hard to improve care in Kansas.

We have many more events planned for the coming months including lectures on USMLE Step one preparation and a social event at the Boulevard Brewing factory. We are excited to continue the excellence of Wahl society and its members.