Source: CaRMS
Congratulations to Kacper Niburski, a third year McGill medical student with a keen interest in social change who was recently selected as the 2020 undergraduate winner of the Sandra Banner Student Award for Leadership. Kacper founded the Community Health and Social Medicine (CHASM) Incubator at McGill to help students build projects that address the needs of the most vulnerable in their communities. With mentorship, a curriculum, and funding, CHASM provides sustainable project development for those who need it most in Montreal.
Winning both national and provincial awards, CHASM is one part of Kacper’s larger deeply held principles regarding the social aspects of medicine. To make lasting change, Kacper believes one needs to first carefully, slowly acquire the skills to ensure lasting impact. In clinical practice, this has meant founding Sonoist, an ultrasound initiative that teaches pathological ultrasound; ddxed, a differential diagnosis tool to improve clinical acumen; and McGill’s first narrative medicine workshop, which is focused on developing the softer, more slippery parts of medical empathy and written communication.
“I’d like to thank the Sandra Banner Student Award Committee, as well as CaRMS in general, for granting me the award nationally under such a peculiar and disastrous time as corona,” said Kacper as part of his acceptance speech. “I think this award has increase value and importance. CHASM, which I founded in 2017, and to which this award will be going to, works exclusively on dealing with minority populations who are disproportionately disenfranchised from a disease like this. I would like to thank you again for the chance and opportunity to make lasting change.”
May 26 2020