HIPHOP Community Health Initiative
What We Do
The Community Health Initiative (HIPHOP-CHI) is an initiative under the umbrella of Homeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach Project (HIPHOP). The initiative is a community service student-run program in collaboration with community partners and supervised by Robert Wood Johnson Medical School faculty and staff that provides health profession students the opportunity to take part in service-learning activities and get involved with the Greater New Brunswick area.
The initiative provides opportunities for health care professional students to empower our future patients. Our programs range from pairing medical students and health professionals at indigent clinics to attending team meetings about HIV prevention and much more; the common link for all our programs is that they allow students to reach out to the community.
The programs offered through HIPHOP-CHI, both within the required curriculum and outside of the required curriculum, allow students to engage in a unique service-learning opportunities where the surrounding community becomes the classroom. Our books and lectures will make us health professionals but our involvement in the community can help make us healers.
Who We Are
Accordion Content
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Program Director
Susan Giordano
Email: susan.giordano@rwjms.rutgers.edu2024-2025 Student Director
Maya Iglesias
2024-2025 General Manager/Research Student Coordinator
Pooja Rao
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Community Health Navigation
- Aryan Borole
- Daniel Devine
Transition of Care (TOC)
- Saisanjana Vellampalli
- Maya Moore
Health Workshop Community Health Education Collaboration (CHEC)
- Drashya Shah
- Jacqueline Erler
Project Outreach
- Reem Esseghir
- Joshua Matthew
New Initiatives/Research
- Sanika Joshi
- Josephine Zhang
Patients At/In Risk (PAIR) Elective
- Swathi Vasudevan
Issues in Cultural Competency and Underserved Community Elective (ICCUCE) and Student Interested in Restoring Community Health (SIRCH) Elective
- Celina Zhou
Literacy Initiative for Students Teaching Older Spanish Speakers (LISTOS) Elective
- Namarata Battula
Students Teaching AIDS To Students (STATS) Elective
- Diana Vitkovska
Fundraising/Donations Student Coordinator
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Shruthi Thiyagarajan
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Listed below are some of HIPHOP's community sites:
Contact Us
For more information about the Community Health Initiative or any of our programs, please contact Program Director Susan Giordano at susan.giordano@rwjms.rutgers.edu.
Our Programs
The programs offered through HIPHOP, both within the required curriculum and outside of the required curriculum, allow students to engage in a unique service learning opportunity where the surrounding community becomes the classroom. Our books and lectures will make us health professionals but our involvement in the community can help make us healers.
For more information about any of the programs below, please contact Program Director Susan Giordano at susan.giordano@rwjms.rutgers.edu.
Accordion Content
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Community Health Navigation is a physicianship first-year medical school curriculum clinical selective. Students will participate in a clinical visit, conduct social needs screening, and provide community resources to patients in collaboration with the physicians and community health workers at Eric B. Chandler Health Center.
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Transition of Care is a physicianship first-year medical school curriculum clinical selective. Students will participate in clinical visits at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, conduct social needs screening, provide community resources to patients in collaboration with the physicians, and do follow-up calls, if applicable. Students also attend Medical Teaching Service Interdisciplinary Rounds.
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Health workshops is integrated into the physicianship first-year medical school curriculum for students to build collaborative relationships with community partners. First-year medical students research, comprise, and present one health workshop in collaboration with community site partners and their group peers. These sites include Open Doors, a drug abuse rehabilitation center; Dina’s Dwelling, permanent housing for domestic violence survivors, women, and their children; Youth Advocacy Program, and many more community sites. Students will be trained by CHEC student coordinators. Staff and faculty orient students on how to research, collaborate, and present workshops addressing issues derived from community partners' introduction/brainstorming meetings. Workshops including but not limited to substance abuse, tobacco, nutrition, exercise, and sexual health and responsibility, are presented and anecdotally evaluated.
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Project Outreach offers numerous short-term and long-term volunteer opportunities to medical, physician assistant, social work, and public health students, as well as Robert Wood Johnson Medical School faculty and staff throughout the entire school year. Participants can volunteer and/or assist with our Annual 5K Run, Science Health Day, and our drives for back-to-school and winter clothing and toiletries. Volunteers can serve at local soup kitchens, assist with blood pressure screening at community health fairs, teddy bear check-ups, counting the homeless, and much more.
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Students work with the program director to support current and create new initiatives, both virtual and on-site. Current projects include Wellness Warriors, Road to Success, Medication Safety, Project SCHEL, and more.
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This service elective includes several community-centered advocacy and support programs and/or collaborations. Some examples of programs and/or collaborations include:
- Students shadow a patient and their health care team while serving as a patient advocate and health educator at the Robert Wood Johnson AIDS Program. Students also attend the program’s healthcare team meetings.
- Students attend an ICCUCE lecture to educate them about at-risk populations.
- Students can also participate in the MEDTalks series.
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A series of didactic sessions held at the medical school. Some sessions are in collaboration with Robert Wood Johnson Medical School student organizations. All didactic sessions are focused on issues that are prevalent in underserved communities. Students who participate in these sessions will receive a notation on their transcript upon completion of meeting ICCUCE and/or SIRCH elective requirements. SIRCH is a prerequisite for a Distinction in Community Service.
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Students in this program are trained to provide health literacy workshops related to exercise, nutrition, heart-healthy behaviors, heart-related conditions, healthy habits and lifestyles, and will end with an integrative review and anecdotal evaluation. The program was developed in order to provide a collaborative forum in which students and community members could interact while enhancing proficiency in each others’ language, understanding of their varied cultures, and how these experiences may enhance overall health care relationships for future health providers and patients.
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Students in this program are trained to present two sessions of interactive workshops on topics relating to HIV/AIDS and sexual health and responsibility at community-based organizations and public schools.
Support Our Work
Please donate to assist us in serving vulnerable populations' needs while training and supporting our medical students on the path to become patient-, family-, and community-centered physicians.
HIPHOP 5K Run
Each year, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Homeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach
Project (HIPHOP) sponsors a 5K Fun Run/Walk fundraiser for our programs.
All proceeds from the event support the Promise Clinic, Community Health Initiative, Asylum Clinic, as well as the community sites committed to caring for the needs of the underserved, and community outreach events and initiatives.
Sponsors and Donations
Please donate to assist us in serving vulnerable populations' needs while training and supporting future physicians who are focused on patients, families, and communities.
Make a Donation Read the Donation Request Download the Donation Form
Past Sponsors
HIPHOP thanks our 5K run sponsors for their support each year.
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Gold
Maria B. Pellerano and Peter Montague
Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program/Steve Levin, MD, and Renee Levin
The Levine FamilySilver
Carol Terregino, MD
Iris G. Udasin, MD
Stress Factory Comedy ClubBronze
Dan Mehan
Deborah M. Spitalnik, John R. Weingart, and Jeffrey Levine, MD
Heidi L. Copeland
Raritan Valley YMCA
Peiris FamilyFriends
Stop & Shop (Somerset & Highland Park)
Target (Watchung)
Dunkin Donuts (Somerset)
Hansel and Griddle
Starbucks
Sam I Am Bagels
Duck Donuts
Past Race Photos
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2022
HIPHOP 5K Run 2021
HIPHOP 5K Run 2021
HIPHOP 5K Run 2021
HIPHOP 5K Run 2021
Contact Info
Phone: 732-235-4198
Email: susan.giordano@rwjms.rutgers.edu or uz14@rwjms.rutgers.edu
Annual Back to School Drive
Support Our Local Students
Dates for 2024 are forthcoming.
We accept new supplies only: backpacks, pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, calculators, highlighters, composition books, folders, crayons, colored pencils, sharpeners, etc.
Donation bins are located at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School:
675 Hoes Lane, HIPHOP Office/Room N115,
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Volunteer Day
Volunteer day has become a tradition at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School for incoming first-year students. Check out pictures from our past volunteer efforts.
Serving Our Communities
Tending to a local community garden known as the Promise Garden. Around 90 members participated in Volunteer Day in 2021, volunteering over 180 total hours of community service at seven community sites.
Helping at our local community soup kitchen, Elijah's Promise. Around 90 members participated in Volunteer Day in 2021, volunteering over 180 total hours of community service at seven community sites.
"Talk with a Future Doc" Health Literacy Tabling at East Brunswick Public Library on the topic of summer wellness. Around 90 members participated in Volunteer Day in 2021, volunteering over 180 total hours of community service at seven community sites.
Volunteers tending a community garden at Wagner Farm. In 2020, 170 members participated in Volunteer Day, volunteering over 400 total hours of community service at eight community sites.
Students packing goods at the Community Food Bank. In 2020, 170 members participated in Volunteer Day, volunteering over 400 total hours of community service at eight community sites.
Preparing food at Elijah's Promise in New Brunswick. In 2020, 170 members participated in Volunteer Day, volunteering over 400 total hours of community service at eight community sites.
Activity Attendance Tracker
Please fill out our form to record your volunteer hours for a specific community service activity date.