This program targets issues for health care delivery to Hispanic populations in the U.S.; however, the concept can be adapted for other groups as your MSS chapter deems appropriate. For your program to provide a full spectrum of information on providing culturally sensitive care to Hispanic populations, plan to invite two speakers. One speaker can present the issue from the social worker's perspective, for example describing the realities for migrant agricultural workers who, often undocumented, face exposure to toxic and/or debilitating working conditions and substandard sanitation in the living facilities.
Your second speaker should be a Hispanic American physician who can discuss how these conditions result in a high rate of preventable medical maladies such as hygiene and trauma related dermatologic problems, upper respiratory and chronic obstructive pulmonary problems (e.g., tuberculosis), tooth decay and serious vision problems. Both speakers should be able to address the following topics in Hispanic culture:
Individual vs. family decision-making.
Attitudes toward pregnancy.
Care of infants.
Responsibility to the aged and infirm.
Diets.
Women's health and the role of women in the family.
To keep the program inexpensive, you should reserve a lecture hall for use immediately following dinner and only serve beverages. For help in locating speakers and developing handouts you can contact the Hispanic American Medical Association or the AMA Advisory Committee on Minority Physicians.
Target Audience: Medical students and interested members of your local medical community.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Beverages $75, Flyers and handouts $50, Total $125
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant.
School: College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Pomona, CA
This program provides an opportunity for your medical school, your hospital's department of pediatrics, and the local Ronald Mcdonald house (RMH) to collaborate in easing the burden of RMH residents and providing clinical exposure to students during their basic science years. Once a month, twelve first year medical students participate in an afternoon shadow program with the pediatricians at your hospital, followed by volunteer work at the RMH that evening. Your MSS chapter will be specifically responsible for the RMH volunteer portion of the program, including funding, personnel and advertising.
RMH offers a comforting atmosphere for families with children being treated at the hospital. At RMH the volunteer students will first be given a brief tour of the facilities, meeting the temporary residents and learning the history of the program. In the evening, the students will prepare dinner for the residents of the House, usually twenty to thirty members of several families. During this time, the student volunteers experience the fears, anxiety and strains of having a loved one in medical distress, allowing them to place the psychosocial aspects of medicine in the context of clinical practice (which they saw that afternoon). A sample schedule follows:
1:00 - 5:00 pm Mini-internship with the department of pediatrics
5:00 - 6:00 pm Pediatric lecture series
6:00 - 6:30 pm Tour of Ronald Mcdonald House
6:45 - 7:30 pm Preparation of dinner
7:30 - 9:30 pm Dinner and interaction with RMH residents
To assure the quality and continued improvement of your program, you need to develop questionnaires to be filled out by all participants (housestaff, RMH residents and the students). You will also need to form a review board to review the questionnaires and oversee program effectiveness. This board should consist of your MSS chapter officers, the chief pediatrics resident and the RMH director.
Target Audience: First year medical students.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Food @ $4/person x 30 x 8 sessions $960, Posters and flyers $30, Total $990
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant, Department of Pediatrics, County chapter of the AMA Alliance, State medical society
School: University of South Florida College of Medicine Tampa, FL
The volunteer infant care program will allow first and second year students to gain experience in:
Assessing the development of neonates and young infants,
Providing play therapy and stimulation to growing infants, and
Performing the basic duties such as feeding, bathing and holding of infants.
You should start by contacting the department of pediatrics with your proposal and then scheduling a training session to be conducted by the head nurse. After several stints working in the well-baby nursery, your group will be able to provide care and therapy themselves. In many settings you will be working with "boarder" babies that are toxicology positive for drugs such as cocaine or heroine. These infants average several months in the hospital prior to discharge, so you will be able to develop ongoing relationships.
Special training may be available for a few students, so they can care for some of the more stable infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Target Audience: First and second year medical students.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Toys for the infants $100, Materials to decorate the nursery $75, Educational materials for mothers $75, Videotapes and textbooks on the developmental stages of the newborn $300, Uniforms for the students $150, Total $700
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant.
School: New York University School of Medicine New York, NY
This program builds computer literacy among your fellow students and will encourage them to explore current medical diagnosis software. With the growing use of the case study method for problem based learning in medical education, this program offers students exposure to the use of computers in assisting with patient diagnosis.
You will need to work with your school's computing department to ensure access to the hardware necessary to run ILIAD Informatics or some equivalent software. Then you can schedule one session to acquaint students with the use of computers in general and to familiarize them with the specific diagnostic software you are using. You should dedicate the second seminar to simulating case study sessions in which the software is used to derive the differential diagnosis of a hypothetical patient case.
Unless you are able to borrow the software for demonstration purposes, the program's only capital investment is the software purchase. Variable expenses remain: reproduction of flyers and handouts for your seminars, and light refreshments for the participants.
Target Audience: All students are your medical school.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: ILIAD Informatics (example only) $295, Refreshments $75, Flyers and handouts $30, Total $400
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant, Office of student affairs
School: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Piscataway, NJ
This program will help any member of your local medical community learn beginning Spanish, with a focus on aiding communications in a clinical setting. By learning some of the fundamentals of Spanish and practicing them using medical vocabulary, your colleagues will be better able to meet the health care needs of Hispanic Americans, the fastest growing minority in the U.S.
Learning any language is difficult, so the course will require a significant time commitment. You should schedule two hour sessions, once a week over seven weeks, to ensure the minimal immersion necessary for participants to retain the material covered. You will need several Spanish speakers from among your classmates to volunteer to teach the course. Your syllabus can be abstracted from a basic Spanish grammar, an elementary reader, and an English/Spanish medical dictionary. Your course curriculum should include at least the following topics: cultural orientation, social language, dialect and word order patterns, taking of personal and family information, communicating simple directions, counting and telling time, providing warnings in case of emergencies, and giving basic commands.
If appropriate, you should consider coordinating your course with other medical schools in your city. You can open the course to physicians and non-physician providers; however, charge them a fee to help recover your costs. As an AMA-MSS membership incentive, make the course free to member students with a modest charge for non-member students. You should provide certificates for those who complete the course.
This program requires much care and preparation, to do it right give yourself enough time to prepare the teaching materials, then reserve classroom space and start advertising.
Target Audience: Medical students and interested members of your medical community.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Postage, flyers and books can run up to $600.
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant and the state medical society.
School: All the schools of the District of Columbia - George Washington University School of Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Howard University College of Medicine,