The P&S Club is the most active and comprehensive student activities organization in American medical education. Founded by Nobel Peace laureate John Mott in 1894, the Club currently sponsors over 50 extracurricular activities. These organizations represent P&S students’ vast interests and talents, including athletics, the performing arts, student advocacy, and community service. The Club’s fluid nature allows new activities to arise as students’ interests evolve. By providing P&S students with outlets for their various talents, the P&S Club adds substantial depth to a program otherwise devoted to scientific and clinical disciplines. While all P&S students are members of the P&S Club, participation is open to all members of the Columbia University Medical Center community, including students, faculty, administrators, and personnel.

Since its creation, the P&S Club has been committed to contributing to the community at the local and global levels. In 1917 the P&S Club made one of its first community contributions by raising funds to purchase a steam launch, which was loaded aboard an ocean steamer that delivered medical services to Eskimo and Indian fishermen on isolated islands along the Labrador coast. In addition to the steam launch, the P&S Club has sent medical textbooks overseas to Greece, Afghanistan, Korea, Guatemala and Haiti and participated in the Mercy Project of 1969, which provided medical treatment for children from the Biafran-Nigerian war zone. Recently, the Club has been involved in many local activities. The Columbia Student Medical Outreach Program (CoSMO) provides an open clinic for the uninsured in the Washington Heights area; the Musicians’ Guild members present an annual concert that benefits the Washington Heights Head Start program; and the Black and Latino Student Organization (BALSO) work with the Family Medicine Minority Caucus to do community-oriented primary care education in Washington Heights. To emphasize the importance of health care providers’ understanding and working with the local and global communities, many of the Clubs’ organizations collaborated to host “The Community Pulse” conference. This conference demonstrates the P&S students’ and the Club’s dedication and concern for the communities in which they work and live.

Under the chairmanship of Dr. Carmen Ortiz-Neu, the P&S Club Faculty Advisory Board maintains a guiding role in the Club while the Student Cabinet, with the support of the Director of Student Activities, is fully responsible for the planning, budgeting, and managing of all organizations and activities. The current Student Cabinet members are Hadi Halazun '09, Co-President; Daniel Stephens '09, Co-President; Cornelia Griggs '10, Co-Vice President; Geoffrey Konopka ‘10, Co-Vice President; Paula Brady '11, Secretary; Daniel Pizzarello '11, Treasurer. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day activities of the student organizations, the Cabinet is also responsible for planning the Club’s annual events such as Orientation, Club Fair, Supernight, and TeamwoRx.

The P&S Club is independently funded. Though generous donations from alumni, parents, and faculty, as well as a substantial grant from the P&S Alumni Association and the Koerber Endowment, the P&S Club is able to sustain its various student organizations and execute its annual events. We sincerely thank these contributors, for it is only with their support that the P&S Club continues to function in its vital role.