About
The Osler Student Societies are a program of the John P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine.
Although other health sciences universities have student societies, as far as we’ve been able to determine, this is the only one in which the focus is specifically promoting the ideals embodied by Sir William Osler (Canadian, 1849-1919).
The development of the Societies was a special project and passion of Dr. Mark Holden, an Osler Scholar.
The Societies enrolled their first full class of entering freshman in August 2006.
There are 8 societies, each with about 30 students and 5 faculty mentors, including one Osler Scholar.
Faculty mentors are nominated by students based on their excellence at teaching and modeling Oslerian ideals.
Each Student Society also has three or four student mentors. These include the Osler Student Scholars (recipients of the generous scholarships endowed in previous years), members of the Gold Humanism Honor Society (to compassion in medicine what AOS is to academic achievement), and the Student Society pilot group that was formed in 2005.
The Student Societies schedule 5-6 activities a year, but the faculty mentors are available for consultation with the students in their groups throughout the year.
One of the first tasks for the Osler student Societies was choosing names. They were told to pick an influential and inspiring historic figure in medicine. They came up with the following:
- Asclepios
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Ashbel Smith
- René Laënnec
- Andreas Vesalius
- Truman Blocker, Jr.
- Albert Schweitzer
The program will expand further when an additional class of freshmen students enrolls in August 2007. Second year students will be invited to continue to participate and to act as student mentors to the first year students.