Douglas Wells of Barnesville and other student leaders at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine have helped the school secure a $25,000 grant from the National Curriculum Initiative in Developmental Medicine to increase inclusion of patients with intellectual disabilities and developmental disorders into the school’s medical doctorate curriculum and to diversify elective choices for medical students.

The highly competitive grant was obtained thanks to the combined efforts of the school’s faculty and the student leaders.

“The whole idea of the grant is to help medical students get comfortable with patients with IDDs early in their training,” Wells said, noting that residency, or even a third-year rotation, is far too late in training to meet such a patient for the first time.

“With the help of our community partners, we’ll make sure first- and second-year students meet standardized patients with an IDD and talk about this patient population in their case-based learning.”

Wells has also helped to organize the eighth annual “Alley-Oop for Autism” three-on-three charity basketball tournament at the school. All proceeds will benefit the Northeast Regional Autism Center at Friendship House in Scranton.

Wells is a longtime advocate for people with IDD. In his second year of medical school, he was co-founder of the Community Healthcare Advocacy Team for Individuals with Disabilities. CHATID is an advocacy group for improving the quality of health care for everyone with disabilities by expanding accessibility, effectively coordinating and making health care workers aware of community-based resources, and improving the efficacy of medical staff to communicate with and care for individuals with disabilities.