Jennifer Lindelof Starts Second Term as SOM Student Senate President
Jennifer Lindelof is beginning her fourth year of medical school with two unique distinctions.
She is New York Medical College’s (NYMC) first School of Medicine (SOM) Student Senate president on record to serve two terms, and she was just named Westchester County Business Journal’s (WCBJ) 2019 Promise of the Future recipient. The Promise of the Future Award recognizes her superior leadership capabilities and impressive commitment to serving her community and is part of the WCBJ’s annual Doctors of Distinction awards which seek to recognize excellence in Westchester medicine.
With a personal commitment to always leave a place better than she found it, Ms. Lindelof embodies the spirit of the Promise for the Future Award. It’s a commitment modeled by her parents during her childhood in Chappaqua, New York, and a value that was reinforced by her teachers throughout her time at Horace Greeley High School. It’s a belief-system she has honed at NYMC where her desire to make a difference can be seen in her passion to improve the lives of her future patients and in the work she does on behalf of her fellow students to improve the medical education experience.
Of her decision to commit so much time to serving her fellow students she said, “It was about making sure that I leave New York Medical College a better place than I found it.”
And she is doing just that. She helped develop the College’s Resiliency Curriculum, the peer-run, peer-driven curriculum in which mental health professionals train upper-class students to run programs designed specifically for first-year medical students, serving as resiliency mentors in peer-led sessions throughout the year. Topics include addressing self-doubt, going from surviving to thriving and de-stigmatizing the act of asking for help.
Another major initiative which Ms. Lindelof helped develop is NYMC’s Student Report Cards, a continuous quality improvement initiative which bolsters students’ abilities to voice their opinions, which in turn has helped elevate student-driven priorities.
Prior to enrolling at NYMC, Ms. Lindelof studied geology at Bates College in Maine and planned to become a climate scientist until she herniated two disks in her back while performing field work. This experience inspired her to change course, opting to pursue a career in medicine instead of climate science. “It was an eye-opening experience to see first-hand how doctors can make an immediate impact on their patients’ life,” she explained.
As a future change maker in the field of medicine, Ms. Lindelof hopes to practice in Westchester. “I would like to be a leader in my community, in my hospital and in my field in a way that I am able to advocate for change,” she said. “Physician burnout is such a big issue these days and I think there's a lot that can be done if only we can redirect the right voices to the right policymakers, and work together to create new proposals aimed at helping physicians practice top-notch medicine without burning out. That's something I'm hoping to tackle in the future.”
