Sixty KCU Students Become Members of Gold Humanism Honor Society

Kansas City University (KCU) continued its commitment to fostering the human element of medicine by installing 60 new osteopathic medical students from the Class of 2021 into the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020.

The GHHS recognizes students, residents and faculty who are exemplars of compassionate patient care and who serve as role models, mentors and leaders in medicine. Members are peer- nominated and are the ones whom others say they want taking care of their own family.

KCU medical students selected 39 of their peers from the Kansas City campus and 21 peers from the Joplin campus based on the “humanism” in their medical approach to patient care. The students were inducted during a virtual ceremony on each campus. The Joplin campus’s inaugural ceremony marked the creation of a new GHHS chapter and the induction of its very first members.

As part of the GHHS application process, students wrote essays about their commitment to patients on a human level. Jillian Baker, who was inducted into the KCU chapter, wrote: "In medical training, it is easy to focus on a diagnostic test, a disease process or the next educational goal. However, without humanism, these things are simply meaningless distractions. Prioritizing humanism requires daily intentionality to remember that your patients’ and colleagues’ lives are about much more than sickness or medicine.”

The Arnold P. Gold Foundation is a nonprofit organization working with healthcare professionals to ensure that compassion, respect and empathy are a key part of all healthcare interactions. Watch a video about the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

KCU Class of 2021 Students Inducted into Gold Humanism Honor Society

Joplin Campus

Kansas City Campus