The adolescent substance abuse project provides a way for medical students to challenge adolescents at area high schools to embrace alternatives to substance abuse.
The program starts with training and relationships. You will need to develop an outline of your presentation and then train your fellow volunteers to deliver it in an empathic and credible way. Topics to include are:
In addition to clinical information, provide your audience with strategies on how to deal with peer pressure and other social pressures they routinely face: bear in mind substance abuse does not occur outside the social fabric, there are other factors to consider.
You will need a relationship with the school district you plan to volunteer in, as well as with the teachers who work there. You are entering their environment, so be respectful. Interaction and discussion with the students needs to take precedence over didactic teaching.
Finally, by evaluating your program you will learn what works so that you can maximize information retained by the teens while increasing their resistance to peer pressure.
The Student-to-Student Program is a health and medical education community outreach program. Medical students can completely manage this program for the benefit of primary and secondary students in the surrounding community. The program's primary goal is to promote health awareness. Medical students do this by going into area schools with a variety of health education presentations. These include:
These presentations address many sensitive issues outside the typical curriculum. The Student-to-Student philosophy is that assisting with the health education of our youth during their formative years will improve their chances for making healthy lifestyle choices in the future.
Both the speaker and the classroom teacher should evaluate each presentation, so the program can be continuously monitored. Presentations can be videotaped and used to train new speakers. In order to keep the content current every presentation should be reviewed and updated annually.
Operating since August 1987, the program has enjoyed phenomenal success with 20,000 contacts in 1989 alone. MSS chapters interested in developing similar programs should contact Wright State's MSS chapter to borrow the Student-to-Student materials, which would include the training videotapes.
This program sends first and second year medical students to present preventive health information at local high schools and the county juvenile hall. The students give sixty to ninety minute presentations on the following topics:
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
AIDS Awareness
Smoking and General Health Education
Teen Pregnancy Prevention
Drug and Alcohol Awareness
Suicide Prevention
The presentations are designed to be engaging, accessible and group oriented, so as to increase knowledge and awareness among high school students on these health issues. In addition, getting the students involved should encourage them to feel more comfortable discussing these topics. Each presentation is run on a rotating schedule so that each student will hear each talk once.
For this program, an MSS chapter collaborates with their state's area health education center (AHEC) to schedule group medical student presentations to rural students in an effort to interest them in medical careers. For your AHEC contact call the DMSS at (800) 262-3211, x4753. The program promotes the following goals:
Make information about higher education accessible to rural high school students,
Encourage these students to explore medicine and the other health professions, and Heighten these students' self-esteem by empowering them to take an active role in career decision making.
Once you have established contact with your AHEC, the program will take about three months to execute. Do not forget to develop an evaluation form for your presentations. The checklist below provides a timetable to assist in developing your program:
3 months: Your chapter's Student Coordinator chooses several of the least stress-intensive dates in your medical school's curriculum (typically a minimum of 3 dates per semester). Student Coordinator or AHEC Coordinator calls high schools to introduce the program and schedule visits.
3 months to -2 months: Student Coordinator recruits a minimum of 1 medical student for every 20 high school students to be addressed (typically 3 medical students per trip).
1 week: Student Coordinator and AHEC Coordinator arrange logistics of travel mode, time and place. Student Coordinator ensures participating medical students are informed.
Program Day: En route to the high school, the Student Coordinator and AHEC Coordinator brief participating medical students on the program's outline, timing, setting and audience.
1 week: Student Coordinator and AHEC Coordinator compile evaluation form data for analysis.
Additional materials available from the AMA are the "Science and Art of Healing" video (loan only) and the "Got That Healing Feeling?"/"Medicine: A Chance To Make A Difference" brochures (for sale, bulk prices). Inquiries should be directed to the AMA Division of Undergraduate Education at (312) 464-4662.
This program will target minority elementary and junior high school students in an effort to stimulate their interest in medical careers. Focusing on students this young makes sense when many minority or disadvantaged students have already made the decision not to pursue medical careers, usually from a belief that it is out of reach for them.
Work with your school's director of community affairs to develop liaisons with area elementary and junior high schools. Prepare MSS chapter volunteers to go to these schools to speak informally to classes and challenging them to think about what they want to be when they grow up. These medical students, through their words and presence, should persuade some of these youngsters that they can become professionals and that among the professions medicine remains one of the most worthwhile callings.
Build on the interest these visits generate by working with their respective teachers and arranging a "field trip" to your medical school. This visit is very important as it can serve to introduce the medical school environment and help the youngsters get comfortable with the prospect of someday entering a professional training program.
Additional resources for your program are available from other organizations such as the Student National Medical Association and the AAMC's Project 3000 x 2000, which seeks to double the number of minority students entering medical school by the year 2000.