{"id":74076,"date":"2013-03-13T10:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T14:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=74076"},"modified":"2013-03-13T15:26:27","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T19:26:27","slug":"medical-students-perform-acts-of-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/03\/medical-students-perform-acts-of-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Students Perform Acts of Kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Medical<\/a>
Medical students plant flowers in a ceremony concluding the 26 Acts of Kindness, which took place over 26 days to honor the lives lost in the Newtown shooting. Bottom row: Shelley Burchsted. Middle row (left to right): Avery LaChance and Keila Veiga. Top row: Jeffrey Cranford, Shawnet Jones and Stacy White. (UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A triangular tower stands in the academic lobby at the UConn Health Center with writing all over it: \u201cextra money in the meter,\u201d \u201cI saved a kitten from a snow bank,\u201d \u201cgave someone directions,\u201d \u201cheld the door,\u201d and \u201cshoveled my neighbor\u2019s walkway.\u201d These are just some of the phrases describing the good deeds that students and faculty have done as part of the Gold Humanism Honor Society\u2019s Solidarity Day.<\/p>\n

This year the UConn Chapter of GHHS decided to encourage the Health Center to commit 26 acts of kindness in 26 days to honor the 26 lives lost in the Newtown shooting.<\/p>\n

The Gold Humanism Honor Society<\/a> is named after Arnold P. Gold, a professor of clinical neurology and pediatrics who valued humanism in medicine. Humanism in medicine describes relationships between physicians and their patients that are respectful and compassionate.<\/p>\n

The GHHS Solidarity Day for Compassionate Patient Care was first held on February 14, 2011, just weeks after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot. It was initiated after trauma surgeon Randall Friese said that his most important act that day was to hold Gifford\u2019s hand and assure her that she was in the hospital and would be cared for. GHHS now celebrates this compassion yearly.<\/p>\n

The UConn Chapter\u2019s decision to commemorate Newtown with acts of kindness was a group effort, according to members Avery LaChance and Keila Veiga.<\/p>\n

The 11 members and faculty advisor Dr. Melissa Held worked together to create pins, cards to hand out, the tower and a poster. They have even begun to film a video about the 26 Acts of Kindness and humanism in medicine overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knew it was a good idea, but I don\u2019t think we realized how good until the day of,\u201d says Veiga. \u201cPeople realized how easy it really is to commit an act of kindness a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd though easy, it sends a very powerful message. A ton of little things add up to something big,\u201d says LaChance.<\/p>\n

The large response was not only from the Health Center \u2014 when word got out about the 26 Acts of Kindness for Newtown the Connecticut Children\u2019s Medical Center wanted to join in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors at CCMC wanted to get involved with our project because the Newtown shooting hit very close to home for some of their employees,\u201d said Veiga.<\/p>\n

The Gold Humanism Honor Society concluded the 26 Acts of Kindness with a flower planting ceremony in the academic lobby. A representative from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation attended and Dr. David Henderson, associate dean of medical student affairs, spoke at the ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the value of efforts such as this by the GHHS to raise awareness of the importance of individual acts of respect and empathy in our day-to-day dealings with one another cannot be overvalued. We create the society we live in each day by the way we interact with each other. I\u2019m proud that UConn was able to participate in such a great cause,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 26 days is just a start. We want to keep it going and perpetuate it moving forward,\u201d says LaChance. \u201cThe pins on everyone\u2019s white coats serve as a daily reminder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UConn chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society embarks on a project to commemorate the Newtown shootings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":74132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-74076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 07:42:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74076"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74147,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74076\/revisions\/74147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/74132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74076"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=74076"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=74076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}