Caring for Her Community: Renee Brumbaugh

Community has always been a priority for Renee Brumbaugh. The rising fourth-year Northeast Ohio Medical University College of Medicine student made it her mission to stay local when it came to her education.

Brumbaugh was a member of NEOMED’s first Early Assurance Undergraduate Partnership class from Hiram College. After matriculating to NEOMED, Brumbaugh was only 30 minutes away from her home and family in Leavittsburg, Ohio — something that’s always been very important to her.

The idea of bringing community and medicine together was inspiring for Brumbaugh. She doesn’t define her community as being exactly rural, but knows the struggle rural areas face as there are many surrounding small towns and communities.

“The idea of caring for underserved patients is what drew me to the rural pathway. Where I live, it’s considered a health profession shortage area. The rural pathway program focuses on bringing care to those types of communities because it’s really hard to draw physicians to these types of areas. It’s really important to me to be able to provide care to the people who need it the most,” says Brumbaugh.

The community connection

As a member of NEOMED’s Rural Medical Education Pathway, a program within the College of Medicine’s Medical Doctor Degree curriculum, Brumbaugh has found her niche on campus and in medicine.

“It’s created a sense of community for me at NEOMED. I’ve gotten really close with the RMED advisers and directors. Through those relationships, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Those relationships have been really helpful for me to keep that sense of a small town, community feel within NEOMED,” says Brumbaugh.

Modeling after her mentor

Through her affiliation with the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Brumbaugh had the opportunity to learn from Dinah Fedyna, M.D. (’82), a former clinical professor of family and community medicine, who recently retired due to a diagnosis of  ALS. After retiring, the University introduced a scholarship in honor of Dr. Fedyna.

Brumbaugh reflects on being recently named as the first Dinah Fedyna Family Medicine Award recipient:

“Dr. Fedyna was the one who taught us how to interview our first pediatric patient and gave us our first taste of anything in the hospital. There were a lot of nuances that she taught us that I thought were really important. Like when we first went to the ICU and I was terrified — you see all these lines, ventilators and people who can’t communicate and are basically comatose. She made sure she prepared us for that – and in a really caring manner. Dr. Fedyna made sure to explain the patient’s background and made sure that we were not looking at it just objectively — which is hard to not do in medicine, because we tend focus on the science. She really brought home the story of this patient’s life and made sure that we were compassionate about it when we went in to see what it was like to be in her shoes,” says Brumbaugh.

Preparing for the future

As she prepares to begin her fourth and final year as a medical student, Brumbaugh hopes to keep Dr. Fedyna’s care and compassion with her as she works through each rotation.

During her second rotation, Brumbaugh will work with NEOMED’s SOAR Student-run Free Clinic. Later, she’s work with an addiction medicine psychiatrist — an experience that she’s eager to embrace.

“I’m pretty excited about that rotation because addiction has always been a passion of mine. I’m looking forward to learning how to navigate situations like that as a future physician,” says Brumbaugh. “I think that’ll be really helpful when I go into a family medicine practice.”