CMU College of Medicine inducts 21 students into medical honor society

This year, the CMU College of Medicine became the Zeta Michigan chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, a 120-year-old honor society for medical students, residents and faculty. Membership in AΩA is a lifelong honor recognizing a physician’s dedication to the profession and the art of healing. While AΩA officially welcomed the College of Medicine and its students in the fall of 2021, COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings postponed a celebration until April 2022.

“AΩA members are chosen for their mission-driven commitment to serve the suffering. In addition to high academic standards, service to others, professionalism, leadership and research are criteria for membership,” said Wendy Biggs, M.D., CMU professor of family medicine, director of the Comprehensive Community Clerkship program and councilor to the College of Medicine’s Zeta Chapter of AΩA. Biggs was inducted into AΩA as a medical student.

While the CMU College of Medicine inducted only fourth-year students this year, Biggs says the CMU College of Medicine will thoughtfully increase the scope of its chapter and eventually consider additional class years, medical residents and faculty for membership.

AΩA was founded in 1902 by a medical student to encourage honesty and the spirit of medical research in fellow students. Today, AΩA has 135 chapters in medical schools across the United States with more than 200,000 members whose ranks include 55 Nobel Prize winners and more than 75 percent of medical school deans. The AΩA emphasizes trustworthiness, character, caring, knowledge, scholarship, proficiency in the doctor-patient relationship, leadership, compassion, empathy, altruism, and servant leadership.