But this time the school came to us….
We are three final year Imperial College medical students
who have just completed our elective in medical education with the Imperial
College Primary Health Care Department. Throughout our time one of the concepts
we focused on was social accountability; how we could better our approach as
medical students and as a university to improve medical outreach.
Medical outreach plays an essential role in the pursuit of
good public health. Not only is it important to educate the public on simple
yet vital pieces of medical knowledge, it is a very effective way of inspiring
the next generation to become tomorrow’s doctors. Underpinning medical outreach
is the philosophy of social accountability in medical schools, a concept which
describes the importance of medical schools catering to the health needs of
their community, both in healthcare and education.
At Imperial, societies such as ICSM Vision do fantastic work
in the local community and make valuable contributions to the applications of
many aspiring medical students – in particular, those from less affluent
backgrounds. One of the main barriers in organising big outreach events is
logistics. Often, events need to recruit a large group of volunteers, advertise
heavily, obtain a high number of well-paying sponsors and require months of
preparation.
This is why we decided to bring medical outreach to a class
of roughly 30 Year 6 pupils, specifically a class of pupils whose school was
next door to Hammersmith Hospital. This was a perfect opportunity to organise a
fun, stress free and logistically simple school trip.
Our team consisted of multiple members of staff and medical
students. Together, we worked on organising two hours of interactive teaching
for the pupils from the local Primary School. We organised a circuit of 7
stations consisting both theory and practical skills. These stations included
venepuncture, CPR, Ultrasound and simulated laparoscopic surgery. This was an
opportunity to provide an exciting and memorable school trip for the pupils and
to infuse them with an interest in the medical sciences. We are influenced
heavily by those around us, especially when we are of primary school age.
Parents, teachers, friends and other adults all play a role in developing our
interests and aspirations.
The event was a definite success. The pupils had an
excellent time and were extremely engaged throughout. It was very clear many
had outstanding scientific brains and were able to ask many thought-provoking
questions throughout the day. Running the stations was also very enjoyable and
the medical students found it very rewarding. Medical students often find
themselves questioning their usefulness in healthcare settings and events like
this truly help affirm their value to themselves. Logistically, everything was
very straightforward, and the school employed all the necessary precautions
with regards to travelling in school trips. Large clinical skills labs are well
suited to events like this and the staff working there said they were happy to
run similar events in the future.
We believe that outreach events of this kind are simple to
run, socially accountable and hugely beneficial to the participants, both
school pupils and students. The school was very happy with how everything went
and wishes it to become an annual event. We look forward to doing more
collaborations in the future.
Written by Foundation year Doctors; Michael Du, Mohammed Said
Noor, Alexander Harding
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