the New American Preparatory Academy Elective

The New American Preparatory Academy, NAPA, is a transition school for immigrant and refugee children and is located just behind our campus and across from Cardinal Glennon on Grand. Students at NAPA from grades K-10 receive accelerated English training, an introduction to the US culture and school system, and exposure to educational expectations and opportunities. And it’s because of our new-found partnership with this amazing school that we’re able to offer two unique elective experiences for SLU SOM students.

Serve as a patient navigator and advocate on behalf of your patient family during their doctor’s visits to Cardinal Glennon. You’ll work to establish a trust relationship with your assigned family, assist them with arranging their appointments and making travel accommodations, and finally, attend their appointments and support them during their visit with the doctor.

OR

Serve as a Health Educator by assisting with developing and teaching a health literacy curriculum for families whose children attend NAPA. Health Educators teach monthly classes to the NAPA families on a wide-range of topics (see list below) in the hopes of broadening the impact we make in this community.

• Fevers/Viruses/Cold
• Nutrition
• Asthma and Allergies
• Primary Care- how to find a primary care provider
• Doctor’s office visit
• Patients’ rights and responsibilities
• Yearly physical exam
• Skin diseases- ringworm, impetigo
• Chronic diseases such as diabetes

We’ll continue to improve the curriculum from the feedback and suggestions we receive from the families who attend.

We understand that some students have already committed to a 12-week elective so, this semester we are opening up these opportunities with NAPA to a limited number of interested volunteers.

In the coming months, we’ll be working with NAPA to offer field trips for their students to our medical campus. Student in grades 9 and 10 will get the opportunity to learn basic suturing skills and laproscopic surgery from Dr. Greg Smith and meet with medical school students to talk about what it takes to become a doctor. So, stay tuned for additional emails.

CONTINUE TO APPLICATION

GHLC's Kickoff Event - An Ice Cream Social

On Thursday, September 13th, SLU's Global Health Learning Community had our kick-off event to start the 2012-2013 academic year. In hopes of educating the new incoming first year students about the numerous opportunities in global health education, the GHLC board invited both students and faculty to converse over Ted's Drews ice cream, a Saint Louis classic.

Attending faculty included Dr Wilman Ortega (Internal Medicine) who organizes an annual summer trip to Antigua, Guatemala; Dr Timothy Rice (Internal Medicine, Pediatrics) who travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo and organizes international fourth year rotations; Dr. Sharon Frey (Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease), a vaccinologist, researcher in bio-terrorism and bio-warfare, and faculty adviser for GHLC; and Dr. Dean Trevathan (Dean for the School of Public Health).

Casa de Salud Navigation Elective

The Casa de Salud Navigation elective is designed to provide students with an understanding of medical Spanish for use in a clinical setting. The role of a navigator is to provide support for patients in their experience with clinics. In short a navigator is a person who functions as a patient advocate. Students interested in taking this elective will be expected to complete an oral proficiency test with Maria Torres of Casa de Salud. Those enrolling are expected to demonstrate fluency in Spanish. Emphasis is placed upon medical vocabulary, cultural competency, and simulated patient/physician interactions.

The elective will be taught by a translator from LAMP for ten to twelve weeks. Class will be held twice a week for 60-75 minutes each. No homework will be given.

For more information about the Medical Spanish elective, contact Edward Doyle edoyle5@slu.edu.

Medicine Abroad International Elective

The Medicine Abroad Program (MAP) at Saint Louis University is a scholarship that completely funds any 3rd or 4th year resident to participate in an international elective in a developing country. This grant allows residents to either find their own location or to spend one month at a site one of our resident grant recipients have gone to in the past. All the resident’s travel and local expenses are covered by this program through funds generously donated by Dr. Philip A. Riley, Jr. and Mrs. Joane Riley, and the additional contribution of Dr. Wilmott and Department of Pediatrics. This program has the strong support of the faculty and residency program director.

These are the scholarly activities required for this rotation. A one-hour noon conference must be given at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center four to six weeks after the experience is complete. Also, a scholarly activity, appropriate for the rotation site, is performed during the rotation. This might include a lecture, teaching session during rounds, an advocacy project, or an educational forum with a community group. The goal is for the resident to learn about the local medical problems, care for patients in the community and by teaching others, improved the delivery of care after the resident departs. Residents are expected to complete four modules of their choice on the Global Health Education Consortium e-learning materials. Starting in 2012-13 year residents will participate in five meetings with the other participants to prepare for their elective and process their experiences with the rest of the participants.

Women's Health: A Global Perspective

This elective will be a 12 week elective beginning Wednesday, October 17th and meeting every other week. The goals of this elective are to educate students on global health issues and to provide clinical experience in women's health all while volunteering by teaching underserved and ethnically diverse populations on relevant health topics.

The structure of the elective is as follows:

Weeks 1 - 4 | Introduction, Global Health Issues Faced by Women, and Doctors as Patient Advocates
Students will be assigned readings and videos and will need to actively participate in any lectures, symposia, and discussions.

Weeks 5 - 8 | Clinical shadowing in obstetrics and gynecology
Students will shadow an OB/GYN

Weeks 9 - 12 | Service work in the community relevant to the course

Students will use this time to actively volunteer at organizations or on projects who's focus is related to women's health.

Success in this elective will be measured by both faculty and peer evaluation and may potentially be added to the student's Dean's Letter.

For more information about the Women's Health elective, contact Katelyn Bezek kbezek@slu.edu.

Medical Chinese

This elective is sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, APAMSA , and will be a six week, spring elective beginning Wednesday, January 30th and meeting every other week. The goals of this elective are for students to learn to interview patients using proper medical Chinese terminology and to gain a better understanding of Chinese cultural values as they relate to health. The skills students learn in this elective will allow them to volunteer at the Chinese Clinic that APAMSA sets up every month.

This elective is best suited for students who have basic conversational Mandarin speaking skills. No formal evaluation of fluency will be administered, therefore participation in this elective will be at the students' discretion. The course will cover vocabulary for: taking a past medical history, family history, review of systems, chief complaints, performing physical exams as well as other essential phrases necessary for successful patient interviews.

One Health

About the One Health Project
Last year, Jessie Bjorklund was on the board of the Infectious Disease Interest Group and partnered with the GHLC to bring Dr. Sharon Deem to SLU SOM to talk. Dr. Deem is a Wildlife Veternarian who started the Institute for Conservation Medicine at the St. Louis Zoo. Her talk focused on the concept of One Health, a current initiative that aims to partner veterinary schools, medical schools, and public health schools in an attempt to research and to promote the idea that human health is inextricably linked to environmental and animal health.

Two of Dr. Deem's research studies directly involve this concept: one in Kenya where camels are moving in because of drought and people are eating the camels and getting diseases like Q fever and the other in Madagascar where she is studying domestic animal parasites and their effect on human health. There are also a number of One Health studies based out of St. Louis. At the Tyson Research Center at Washington University there is a PhD studying how tick borne disease incidence is changing based on where humans are living.

The Elective
The elective will be a six week, fall elective beginning Wednesday, October 17th and meeting every other week. There will be an introductory lecture with a few readings followed by group discussion. We will be assigning readings from three different books for various elective days, but will not assign more than 20 pages of reading for a given 2 week period. The books will cover the topic of One Health from the perspective of animal health, human health, and ecology. We will cover topics such as the transmission of zoonotic diseases, how human health is affected by biodiversity and more specific topics such as animal disease and it's implication for treating human disease. With each reading, there will be a set of discussion questions. These questions are for GUIDING discussion on Wednesday only. Students do NOT need to answer them before the elective day, though it would be helpful to at least look over them. 

Students will be required to write a final paper, no less than 2 pages in length. The following questions must be answered in the final paper:

Pick a human disease/issue that interests you (i.e. obesity). Do any other species get this? What factors play a role in these other species developing this issue? How is this issue treated in other species? Are there any implications for how we might optimize our treatment of this issue in humans, based on what we learn from it in other species?