Committee on Global and Public Health

Publicly Speaking
DECEMBER 2011

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Active Citizenship
The Committee on Global and Public Health has been inspired by the work AMA-MSS members have been doing at home and abroad. We chose to feature your efforts in this issue of Publicly Speaking. We hope you enjoy learning about the efforts of medical students across the nation who are working in clinics, teaching in schools, and offering public health screenings. Medical students are working hard to improve access to healthcare for their neighbors and around the world. If you would like any more information about any of the projects featured in this issue please feel free to contact Lauren Page at lauren.page.black@gmail.com.

Andrew Osten Lauren Page Black Jared Brown Mariam Eskander Lauren Gluck Mitchell Li Vanessa Stan Chris Verdick

International Health Outreach

Students from the University of Louisville can participate in an elective rotation in International Health during the summer after their first year of medical school. Official programs have been implemented in Honduras, Ecuador, and Kenya. Pictured with the Indian Ocean in the background are students who traveled to Mombasa, Kenya and the surrounding rural area for three weeks in the summer of 2010 to provide primary care to the local population by setting up clinics at schools and orphanages.

Interim 2011: A special thanks to Dr. Paul Auerbach and Dr. Yohsuke Takasaki for their gracious participation in our Interim Program.

Come Hell or High Water: International Perspectives on Disaster Relief was a

great success, over 90 students participated in our discussion of disaster relief in Haiti and Japan.

Two Tufts MD/MPH students and one Tufts MD student spent the summer in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Partnering with an organization called "Finca Las Nubes, the students helped facilitate diabetes treatment and management groups in the rural areas surrounding the city. When they were not running clinics, they administered a door-to-door needs assessments and risk perception surveys in the urban center, reaching almost 200 homes. All work was under the guidance of two community health workers and a Nicaraguan doctor, seen here facilitating exercise groups and taking vitals signs of patients in the treatment group.

International Outreach
rural hometown of Las Palmas, Panama in spring 2010. They worked to form crosscultural bridges with medical and nursing students in the city of Santiago de Veraguas, assisted with patient care at a hospital in Santiago, and helped loc a l gy nec ol og ist s screen and treat several hundred women for cervical cancer in area community clinics. An Albert Einstein College of Medicine Medical students and members of the AMA chapter at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston traveled with Dr. Adan Rios, MD, an oncologist at UT Houston, to his

student taking blood pressure at a local school in Vellore, India.

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In the summer of 2011, students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Medicine and the University of Buffalo participated in the Bienstar program for women with Parkinsons disease. They raised over $14,000 which was used to rebuild a patients home and purchase an EKG machine and hospital beds for a local facility.

The Lamay Clinic Project is a student-founded and student-run global health initiative started by CCLCM students three years ago. Each summer, students from CCLCM and Case Western Reserve University Medical school (along with recruited physicians, nurses, and optometrists) go to the Sacred Valley region of Peru to provide medical care to the native Quechua-speaking population of rural mountain villages, who have little or no access to healthcare throughout the year. As part of this project, students provide education about obstetrics, back pain, dental care, and gastritis, conduct eye exams and distribute glasses to lay health workers in the region.

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Project Haiti is a medical mission trip of the University of Florida College of Medicine and Shands Hospital. Every spring since 1996 Project Haiti has provided free healthcare to people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic; last year they were able to treat 4,000 patients over the course of the week.

Chicago Medical School students teaching about HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention at Hope of Children and Women Victims of Violence in Kampala, Uganda.
P U B L I C L Y S P E AK I NG

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Outreach at Home
Currently over 600,000 Oregonians are uninsured, with 558 dying unnecessarily every year from lack of access to healthcare. Oregon students came together with the fourth annual health fair at Potluck in the Park at O'Bryant Square in downtown Portland on March 6, 2011 to provide care for the uninsured. Services were provided by students and physicians from the OHSU schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and public health as well as the Aveda Institute and the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. Nearly 300 patients utilized services at the health screening fair; 33 patients were seen in the mobile dental vans, over 120 haircuts were performed, and 25 dogs were seen. The AMA was one of many community sponsors.

From left to right: Ryan Seibert (MS4 at BU School of Medicine who organized the first medical student health fair in spring 2010), the three physicians who supervised the medical students for this years health fair: Dr. Shapur Naimi, Dr. Helen Cajigas, Dr. Burton Mandel, and Francis Kim (MS2 at BU who was this years student organizer). Not pictured: Monica Wood from Harvard who was the other student organizer.

A medical student at the Medical Student Health Fair in Boston, Massachusetts fits a child for a bike helmet.

The AMA MSS chapter at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine partnered with Camillus House, a non-profit organization that provides humanitarian services to citizens with lower income. At this branch of Camillus house, the chapter worked with the Junior League of Miami to provide a womens health

seminar for the ladies staying at the house. They presented topics including the meaning of blood pressure readings, how to better manage diabetes through nutritional awareness, and the details behind menopause. The seminar also included a short yoga lesson to teach the women ways to stay fit and active.

Committee on Global and Organization Public Health

Outreach at Home

Find us on Facebook: AMA MSS Committee on Global and Public Health Andrew Osten, Chair Andrew.Osten@gmail.com Lauren Page Black, Vice Chair Lauren.Page.Black@gmail.com

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

Indiana University medical students educating kids about the dangers of smoking and encouraging a smoke-free Indiana at a local health fair.

AMApublichealth .blogspot.com

Students from the four medical schools in Massachusetts preparing to ride a leg in the Region VII relay Miles for Healthier Lifestyles in April 2011 to raise awareness of the need for physical activity as a component of healthy lifestyles.

Brown University Alpert Medical School's second year students and faculty dressed in pink to raise awareness of breast cancer issues and treatment. It spurred much discussion both inside and outside of the medical school community.