Caption: Josh Goltsman, left, and Nathan Raabe, right, are among the Pitt students who get hands-on interprofessional experience at the Pitt Vaccination and Health Connection Hub.
By Rachana Senthil
Photography by Rayni Shiring, University of Pittsburgh
Step inside the University of Pittsburgh’s Vaccination and Health Connection Hub, and you are greeted with brightly colored walls and a ceiling draped with flags from all over the world. This vibrant atmosphere sets the stage for a unique culture where the Hub provides vaccinations, health screenings and travel health services to the University community and its neighbors.
The space allows students from all six Pitt Health Sciences schools to intersect and learn hands-on about how to care for their community. Josh Goltsman, a third-year pharmacy student who is an intern at the Hub, notes that it provides multiple opportunities for connecting with people in other fields and learning to respect what each of them brings.
"I feel like this would be a very different experience if we were just completely walled off," Goltsman said, emphasizing how pharmacy, medical and even dental students work side-by-side to manage patient care, registration and counseling.
“The Hub is a cornerstone of community health and wellness,” he said. “The team really emphasizes the importance of learning from your peers in other health disciplines, and it’s amazing to see that synergy in how we take care of our patients.”
And patients at the Hub often comment that they appreciate having a role in Pitt students’ education.
For students like Nathan Raabe, a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, and researcher in the Department of Medicine, the Hub represents a practical application of decades worth of scientific research from many professional backgrounds, or what he calls "translational medicine."
While Raabe spends his time studying infectious disease surveillance and outbreak prevention, he argues that academic data means little if it isn't effectively communicated to the public. "Whenever there is research on vaccine effectiveness or recommendations, for example... how is that information actually communicated to patients? The answer is that it's not really through scientific publications," Raabe explained.
"It's through places like the Hub that are well informed on this body of scientific evidence and translate that work into real medicine for people." This collaboration allows students to ground themselves in both academic theory and the reality of face-to-face patient care, transforming science into real-world health solutions.
Ultimately, the Hub serves as more than just a clinic, as it strengthens the relationship between the University and the city. The interprofessional environment ensures that the community receives high-quality, compassionate care while students gain crucial experience in the soft skills of medicine.
"The Hub acts in a way that the community and Pitt students truly get to overlap in health care," Raabe said. With students of different backgrounds having the opportunity to provide real care and share good information, the Hub builds trust in medicine, proving that the most effective public health strategy involves bringing different specialties together.
More information about the Hub is available at healthhub.pitt.edu.