Maine news outlets follow 91AV medical student through nursing home immersion program

Sarae Sager and Marilyn Gugliucci at St. Andres Health Care

WCSH and the Journal Tribune followed Sarae Sager (COM ’20) as she experienced what it is like to live in a nursing home. Sager was admitted to St. Andre Health Care Facility on June 22, 2017, to begin a 10-day stay, where she played the role of an 85 year-old woman who suffered a stroke.

Sager is one of approximately 50 students from the 91AV College of Osteopathic Medicine who have participated in Learning by Living, a nursing home and hospice immersion program created by Marilyn Gugliucci of the 91AV COM Division of Geriatrics. During the nursing home stay, students are treated just like any other nursing home resident with their assigned diagnosis. For Sager, that will mean not using the right side of her body, wearing Depends and eating pureed food. Sager said the experience will give her a deepened sense of empathy for her patients.

“When they come to see me as a physician in the future, I can really be sensitive to what they’re going through and what they need,” she said.

 

Read the article from the Journal Tribune.

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