MD students explore health supports in the community
SECOND-YEAR MEDICAL STUDENT LAURA BURGESS. PHOTO BY CAROLYN MORRIS.
With advanced medical treatments available, many children struggling with cancer are able to survive their disease. But prolonged medical care often means they miss out on much of the social side of being a kid — like going to school and playing with friends. This is when community initiatives like Camp Oochigeas — an organization providing summer camp experiences and recreational programming for kids with cancer, even during chemotherapy treatment — step in.
“Programs like this are integral to help support people,” says Laura Burgess, a second-year medical student who has spent the past year collaborating with Camp Oochigeas staff members to collect and summarize the various research studies done on the camp’s impact. The document is intended as a resource for outreach and a foundation for future research. “Physicians are focused on medical treatment, but there’s so much more this population needs.”
Burgess spoke about the camp and her experience to medical school colleagues, as well as various community partners at a community forum held at U of T this week. As part of a new medical course called Community, Population and Public Health (CPPH), first and second-year medical students are partnered with community organizations around the city that support health in a variety of ways. They spend time learning and contributing in ways informed by the community partners — exploring the social determinants of health though a service-learning experience.
This community engagement is an important facet of the new Foundations Curriculum, which encourages an integrated approach to medical education. At this week’s event, the second years shared their experience, and reflected on how it might make them better physicians in the future.
“SOMETIMES IT’S NOT THE MEDICINE THAT HELPS AS MUCH AS THE ABILITY TO CONTEXTUALIZE WHERE IT FITS WITHIN THE BROADER COMMUNITY SUPPORT SYSTEM,” SAYS DR. CHASE MCMURREN, COURSE TUTOR AND UHN STAFF PHYSICIAN, PICTURED WITH STUDENT. PHOTO BY CAROLYN MORRIS
One student helped develop health and wellness seminars for seniors at the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf; another pair of students worked with Children’s Aid Society of Toronto front-line workers to create a resource listing a variety of income supports their clients may qualify for. Others worked with groups involved in housing support for the homeless, childhood development, nutrition, diabetes education, rehabilitation and more.
“The community forum gives students the opportunity to share their experiences with their colleagues, faculty and community partners and highlights the role of partners and resources in the community,” says course director Dr. Allison Chris, a family physician and public health and preventive medicine specialist. “Students and community partners have the opportunity to reflect on the experience together.”
For Roxanne Wright, the course’s community health placement officer, it’s important for the students to get out of regular healthcare settings and into the community. “When you get into other contexts, you realize how you can really listen to people and lend your voice in a way that makes sense to them,” she says.
As for Burgess, she’s not sure how much of an impact her work with Camp Oochigeas will have. “In the grand scheme of things, they do so much for the patients, families and communities they work with,” she says. Ultimately she hopes she and her colleagues will be tuned into the many community resources available — and be able to connect their future patients to supportive networks.
