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Top Italian Medical Students at D’Youville for Month Long Conference

Buffalo, New York – July 17, 2012 – D’Youville College will host the Third Annual Professor Giovanni Mazzotti Italian-American Conference on Human Anatomy, Research and Healthcare Professions from July 19 to August 11 on the West Side campus.

Fifty-three top Italian medical students will stay on campus for the learning conference and will have opportunities to tour the city, the University at Buffalo Medical School, Women and Children’s Hospital, Niagara Falls, Toronto, and other areas of interest.

The students are from Italian medical schools in Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Milan, and Salerno and they represent the top students in terms of knowledge and ability to understand English in an academic setting. They were required to take an “entrance examination” to attend the D’Youville conference.

The event is organized by the Math and Natural Sciences Department at D’Youville and was created in 2010 by Drs. Marion P. Olivieri and Mary Hurley.

A special Italian Mass will be held for the students and friends on Sunday, July 22 at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, 160 Court Street, at 11:15 a.m. followed by a campus welcome brunch and reception at 12:30 p.m. in the College Center with entertainment provided by the Formula Band. Anyone interested in participating should call or email the meeting organizer.

The students will spend the majority of their time on campus observing gross anatomy and dissection procedures in D’Youville’s gross anatomy laboratory. This facet of medical education is not currently offered in Italian medical universities. Italian medical students only learn gross anatomy, dissection from books, models and demonstrations, as there is not an established donor program in their country.

The medical students will also meet with faculty and staff from the other healthcare disciplines taught at the college. The Italian students will spend one or two days shadowing a medical doctor in Western New York and many will witness an autopsy at the Buffalo Medical Examiner’s Office.

The Italian students will finish the conference in Toronto with a tour of the Dr. John C. Grant Museum at the University of Toronto after a day in New York City.

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Contact is Dr. Marion Olivieri at 829-7647 or Kathleen Anderson at 829-8163. The email address for conference information is Italians@dyc.edu.