Inside SGU’s Gold Humanism Honor Society: Interview with SOM Associate Dean Dr. Toni Liggins
While technical skills and knowledge are crucial in medical school, developing compassion and sensitivity to treat patients with care and respect is key to becoming a good doctor.
This is something that St. George’s University School of Medicine Gold Humanism Honor Society strives to instill in all of its members. SGU has a unique history with the GHHS organization—the University was its first international chapter and is one of the largest schools to offer this honor to students.
An induction into the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) is not merely an honor but a validation of a med student’s commitment to the organization’s mission of “humanism in healthcare,” which means providing medical care that is not only top-quality but also compassionate, safe, and reliable.
Dr. Toni Liggins is associate dean of clinical studies and faculty advisor for SGU’s Gold Humanism Honor Society chapter. She detailed to SGU News what it means to be a GHHS inductee, current projects the clinical students are working on, and how she hopes to expand SGU’s chapter to benefit more clinical students.
SGU: What does an induction into the Gold Humanism Honor Society say about a medical student’s potential as a physician?
Dr. Liggins: Unlike other typical honor societies that look at your scores or your GPA, this is looking at someone’s behavior in the clinical setting with patients and clinical team members. It sounds simple, but it is evidence that you are a compassionate human who cares about someone else who is in pain or suffering as many of our patients are.
So, it just really says that person has somehow gone above and beyond or has shown to really act in a compassionate way during a notable instance. It could be reaching out to the family of a child to make sure the parents’ questions have been answered, letting a mother cry and handing over tissues, or spending time with a patient who is really suffering.
Sadly, because there’s so much demand for physicians’ time, sometimes that compassion is lost. And so that’s really what the Gold Humanism Honor Society is. It’s a message to the students that we see you—keep that compassion and humanism in medicine alive, and take it with you in the next step in your career.
SGU: What will students learn from engaging in a GHHS project? How will that help them in their careers as physicians?
Dr. Liggins: We’re hoping to inspire and develop life-long advocates for patient-centered care following graduation from SGU.
Our hope is that they carry with them the idea of being a compassionate physician, but also, we hope students want to continue to be involved with Gold Humanism chapters in residency. Where there isn’t a full-fledged chapter, there are definitely opportunities at that level, like volunteering in the community or representing a hospital at a health fair.
SGU: How do the projects work? Are students assigned a project or get to choose what they work on throughout the year?
Dr. Liggins: Our chapter is kind of unique. SGU has three ongoing student-led projects. Inductees decide which of the current projects they want to be involved with. Each project has two leaders who are currently GHHS chapter members who make sure their team is fulfilling the requirements of the project.
The student projects are as follows:
- Medical Humanities: This project is a social media initiative meant to encourage reflection and discussion among medical students about mental health, physician burnout, death and grief, stereotyping, and other related issues.
- Suicide and Mental Health Awareness: Those who partake in this project participate in walks, both virtual and in person, that are sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) with the goal of raising awareness and funds for the cause.
- Reach Out and Read (ROR): In contributing to the mission of Reach Out and Read, a national organization, students get involved by reading to children in person, prerecording videos to share, donating books, or fundraising money to buy books. The project focuses on children with limited access to books, many belonging to historically marginalized communities.
SGU: What are your long-term goals for the SGU GHHS chapter? How do you envision it evolving over the next few years?
Dr. Liggins: One of my goals is to increase the size of SGU’s chapter. Truthfully our chapter’s numbers in recent years have a lot of room for improvement. I want to increase that number, while still maintaining the integrity of who gets nominated.
SGU: You mentioned that the nomination process, which just closed in late February, was expanded this year. What were the changes and why?
Dr. Liggins: Previously there were only peer-to-peer nominations, where a current third year medical student in the clinical space could nominate up to three of their peers and barring self nominations. However, we did not have a process to allow for any teaching faculty to nominate students. And so, because we are such a large school with 75+ clinical sites, there was a big opportunity to gather more qualified submissions if we could find a way to have faculty nominate students.
For the first time this year, we invited directors of medical education and clerkship directors to nominate students. I’m excited to see the results of that change for this go around and in the future as more clinical faculty become aware that they can now nominate students.
SGU: How does participating in these projects help students when it comes time for residency applications and interviews?
Dr. Liggins: What’s great about the ERAS system, the centralized online residency application system, is that students can check a box and very easily let program directors know they are part of the GHHS.
I think what it tells residency program directors is that being a part of the GHHS is a powerful endorsement of professionalism. This student has gone above and beyond and can potentially be a role model for others.
SGU: How does being the chapter’s faculty advisor satisfy your personal passions and interests?
Dr. Liggins: I was honored when Dr. Loukas and Dr. Grant suggested that I become the new faculty advisor for SGU’s GHHS chapter in 2023. I’m trained as a psychiatrist and as a former residency program director, I am used to working in a mentor/role model capacity. I would always tell my residents that we (psychiatrists) are medicine’s example of compassion and humanism in medicine. And then on a personal level, I think this fits me. It’s perfect. It’s always been who I am and what I enjoy about my position is being a role model that way.
–Laurie Chartorynsky
