Student named to top AMSA post

UofL medical student William Nunley has been named the national director of student programming for the American Medical Student Association.

Nunley, who took a leave of absence from his studies at UofL to assume the full-time, yearlong post in Reston, Va., is responsible for developing and overseeing local, regional and national AMSA projects on a range of issues.

These include leadership development, diversity, disparities in health care, medical student well-being and the revitalization of professionalism.

Nunley, who's been in the job since mid-summer, said he initially felt a bit apprehensive about leaving medical school for 12 months.

Now he knows he made the right decision.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm interested in academia and I want to work with medical students, so the education I've gotten this year has been invaluable," he said.

"On any given week, I may present at a national conference a research paper on one of AMSA's initiatives or visit schools to discuss whether health care should be considered a basic human right or a commodity. To me, that experience is pretty close to priceless."

AMSA is a student advocacy group with more than 40,000 members and 160 chapters across the United States.

It was responsible for drafting congressional legislation this year aimed at reducing the number of weekly hours that medical residents are required to work.