How can health professions students understand the impacts of life circumstances on health? Each summer, students of medicine and other health disciplines imbed in an array of community organizations in cities in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey as part of a seven-week program known as Bridging the Gaps. The program gives students the opportunity to work in interdisciplinary teams to address community needs while they learn how the health of individuals is shaped by the communities in which they live.
As the program reaches its 35th anniversary, a new documentary, “This Too Is Healthcare: Bridging the Gaps,” follows several health professions students as they step beyond university lecture rooms and hospital walls into community organizations that confront health inequities.
At Learn Serve Lead 2026: The AAMC Annual Meeting this November, attendees will have an opportunity to attend a screening of “This Too is Healthcare: Bridging the Gaps,” followed by a discussion led by André Robert Lee, director and writer of the film; Donald Schwarz, MD, MPH, MBA, founding faculty member of Bridging the Gaps and former deputy mayor for health and opportunity and health commissioner of Philadelphia; and Anthony Singleton, founding president and CEO of Educators 4 Education and a long-time collaborator with Bridging the Gaps.
AAMCNews recently spoke with Lee and Schwarz about the program and its legacy. Below are excerpts from the conversation.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
For André Robert Lee: What did you know about Bridging the Gaps before you started filming the documentary, and how did your views about health care change during the filming?
André Robert Lee
I first learned about Bridging the Gaps in 2016 when I was invited to receive the program’s annual award and speak to the students. I talked about growing up in a lower-income family and how health care services in Philadelphia had made a real difference in my own life. I came away thinking I understood what the program was about. A few years later, I was asked to make a film about Bridging the Gaps, and I thought I knew the program. But once I started spending time with the students and visiting the community organizations where they worked, my perspective changed. I began to understand that health care extends far beyond what happens in a doctor’s office.
For Donald Schwarz, MD: You were one of the founding faculty members of Bridging the Gaps. How did you come to see the need for this program?
Donald Schwarz, MD
When I was finishing my training at Penn [Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania], a nurse practitioner and I visited about 1,200 homes in West and South Philadelphia doing home visits with adolescent mothers and their children. It was transformative for me. I would talk to medical students about those experiences, and they all wanted to come with us. We couldn't bring trainees into people's homes because of privacy concerns. But by then I had also worked with Philadelphia’s health department and had developed relationships with people in community organizations. We began bringing some of those people in to talk with students. But what trainees really wanted was to step outside the classroom and actually meet people and work alongside them. A pair of students eventually found funding so they could spend the summer doing just that — and that ultimately became Bridging the Gaps. From there, the program just grew.
One of the takeaways from the documentary is that the pathway to good health goes through the community. In other words, whether you are healthy has as much to do with your environment as the services that are provided in the health care system — lessons that students may not be getting in the classroom. How does the experience transform them?
Lee: Bridging the Gaps gives students something that's very difficult to teach in a classroom. They see firsthand how people's health is shaped by where they live, the resources they have, the trauma they've experienced, and the communities they're part of. And that can fundamentally change how they think about their role as health professionals. These students are at a pivotal point in their lives — they're becoming adults and beginning to figure out not just what kind of health professional they want to be, but what kind of person they want to be. The experience challenges students' assumptions about their careers and about what it means to care for people. In one case, a student even changed her professional path after the summer because she felt she could have a greater impact in a different field.
Schwarz: Bridging the Gaps also reaches students at a point when they're already on a particular professional track [e.g., physician, social worker, nurse, dentist] and gives them a view into other tracks and other people's lives. For a time, they get to put on a different hat. A medical student or a social work student might put on the hat of someone working with children every day on a playground, for example. It may not ultimately be the hat that fits them, but they come away with a much deeper appreciation for the people who do that work and the communities they serve. And that's critical in health care.
In the film, one of the students says, "I thought the system was better at figuring out how to keep people healthy.” How surprised are the students at the magnitude of the need that they're witnessing in community settings?
Lee: There was a whole range of reactions. Some students were shocked, some were in disbelief, and some were actually filled with hope. At Sankofa Community Farm in West Philadelphia, for example, they saw a community that's deeply invested in bringing people together to grow healthy food that residents can eat and sell. So they weren't just seeing the magnitude of the need, they were also seeing communities working to address those needs.
My hope is that those experiences stay with students when they become practitioners. When a patient is late for an appointment, instead of thinking, “You're wasting my time,” maybe they ask, “How did you get here? What made it difficult? How can we make it easier next time?” That's a very different way of thinking about caring for someone.
What do students learn about their own experiences and privilege, and how they influence care by participating in Bridging the Gaps?
Schwarz: It really depends on the student. But for the majority, it challenges them in very significant ways. Some students come from families and communities that have struggled themselves, and they may feel conflicted about now being in this very privileged professional environment. Bridging the Gaps gives them an opportunity to draw on their experiences and recognize that what they know about their own communities has real value in their professional lives. Then there are students who have never had this kind of exposure at all. Some are overwhelmed by it. We've had students come in after the first week in tears because the experience is so challenging. And yet, by the end of the summer, some of those same students want more. They've become deeply committed to the work.
Love is a cornerstone principle with Bridging the Gaps. But that’s not in the typical medical school curriculum. What role does it play in the program and in the practice of medicine?
Lee: When a doctor walks into a room, they're thinking about what's happening inside your body — your organs, your symptoms, your diagnosis. Developing the ability to also connect with the person in front of you takes a different skill set, and that takes experience and practice. When that connection happens, it can be incredibly powerful. That's where love comes in. It's something that's already in us that we have to learn how to access — to really see and connect with another person. And if we can bring that into the practice of health care, it can make the work, and the care provided, much stronger.
Schwarz: I would add that if you don't love what you're doing, you burn out. When you enter medical school, nursing school, or dental school, you're immersed in an incredibly demanding curriculum. You're also surrounded by people who may be struggling with their own connection to the work. So how do you hold on to that sense of purpose and your capacity to really care about people? Bridging the Gaps gives students a summer to reinforce that — to be with people across the health professions who share and strengthen their love for what they do and remind one another why the work matters. At the same time, you learn how to build meaningful relationships with the people you care for. Having that experience early can make a real difference.
How has participation in Bridging the Gaps carried over into the lives and careers of some of the students? What feedback have you received?
Schwarz: I had an experience that really brought this home for me when I was in the hospital as a patient on a postoperative ward. The nurses were clearly overworked. But there was one nurse who was like a beam of sunshine. From the moment she came into the room, she wanted to connect with who I was as a person — not just ask about my pain or my medical condition. We started talking, and I finally asked her, “What made you this way?” She told me that early in her training she'd had an experience working in West Philadelphia. I said, “I bet that was Bridging the Gaps.” And she looked at me and said, “How did you know?” It's anecdotes like that that keep you going.
Lee: We recently screened the film for a group of women who were in a training program, and one of the professors suddenly said, “Wait a minute — I did that program.” She told us, “That experience shaped who I am. It shapes my practice and all the work that I do.” That's what's so powerful about the program. It becomes part of who people are and how they approach their work, and sometimes they don't fully recognize that influence until years later.
How can health systems put the lessons of Bridging the Gaps into practice?
Schwarz: One of the things Bridging the Gaps teaches is humility, and I think that's particularly important for large health systems and academic health centers. Too often, institutions look at the communities around them, see tremendous need, and say, “We know what you need, and we're going to bring it to you.” They don't necessarily stop and listen to what people in those communities are actually saying. When people from academic health centers approach communities genuinely, don’t come in with preconceived answers, and really listen, something changes. And sometimes those conversations lead to solutions for problems the institutions had thought were unsolvable. They also come away with a much greater appreciation for the knowledge, strengths, and resources that already exist within communities.
After 35 years of Bridging the Gaps, what is the program’s legacy?
Schwarz: There are now more than 6,400 people who have gone through Bridging the Gaps. People carry what they learned through Bridging the Gaps into their practices, their institutions, and eventually into leadership positions. We have alumni in incredibly important roles — presidents of professional societies and senior leaders in medicine and other health professions. Add to that, Philadelphia plays an especially important role in medical education — a significant share of the nation's medical students spends some part of their training here. That gives Bridging the Gaps an influence that reaches far beyond the city.
