Inside Duke Medicine

Schools of Medicine, Nursing are active partners in helping our community

Medical student Hannibal Person lectures about the cardiovascular system to 3rd graders from Forest View Elementary School in the amphitheater of Duke Clinic, the main lecture hall for medical students. Photo courtesy of Navid Pourtaheri.

In 2008, as a first-year Duke medical student, Navid Pourtaheri imagined creating an affordable, simple and sustainable way to improve the health of youths in Durham.

Today Pourtaheri’s dream is a reality called Duke Med Elementary. Dozens of medical students volunteer twice a month with third- and fourth-grade students from six Durham schools to discuss heart health, diet and exercise, and careers in health care and biological sciences.

Duke readily supported the effort with funding and supplies, and agreed to host class visits and field trips. “Duke clearly puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to educating and reaching out to the community,” Pourtaheri says.

His fellow medical students responded enthusiastically. “I knew this was the perfect public service opportunity for me to take my current studies in medicine and turn them into a way to give back to the community,” says second-year medical student Melodi Javid.

By working with children, the medical students are promoting Duke’s community health mission at a very fundamental and important level, says Nancy Weigle, M.D., family physician
at Duke’s Holton Wellness Center and a program mentor.”

Some of my patients who have participated tell me they know how to use a stethoscope and how to keep their heart healthy,” she says.

Community-focused health care is central to health professions education at Duke, which recognizes that patient care increasingly will be delivered in non-traditional settings using innovative models of care to promote health, wellness and individual self-care.

In 2010, the School of Medicine initiated the Primary Care Leadership Track, a major overhaul of its curriculum. The goal is to train primary care leaders who will enter residency prepared to engage communities and health care practices to improve health outcomes.

Program director Barbara Sheline, M.D., MPH, associate professor of community and family medicine, says PCLT students learn to see health care through patients’ eyes. By working in the community, they also understand available resources.

“These experiences will help our students think outside the box of the traditional clinical settings,” Sheline says. “Hopefully they will become the leaders who work to improve the experience of care while improving the health of populations in a cost-effective
manner.”

Through its Office of Global and Community Health Initiatives (OGACHI), the School of Nursing launched Raising Health, Raising Hope to focus on health-promotion education for vulnerable populations in Durham as a year-round clinicalplacement option for Community Health Nursing students.

Raising Health, Raising Hope provides monthly health-promotion programs at Genesis Home, a residential family shelter, and at a Durham Rescue Mission shelter for homeless women and children. It also serves children and families at Eastway Elementary School, chiefly African-Americans and Hispanics living in impoverished North East Central Durham. Other sites include Y.E. Smith and E.K. Powe elementary schools, non-profit CAARE, and other programs serving some of the city’s neediest people.

Many Duke health professions students also volunteer in community settings.

Nursing students participate in community initiatives such as a health fair for Hispanics organized by El Centro Hispano and “Durham Homeless-Connect,” sponsored by the Durham 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, where health and other services are provided at one site to the homeless population.

“Inequalities in access to health care present a tremendous challenge in our community, but also offer an opportunity for our students to effect change – to make a difference not only in their future careers but also as they are being educated,” says Dorothy
Powell, Ed.D., RN, FAAN, OGACHI director and associate dean.

Duke physician assistant students have volunteered at Burton Elementary School since 2001 in a project to improve children’s personal health in fun, interactive ways.

“Our students enjoy interacting directly with the youth in our community,” says Karen Hills, MS, PA-C, associate director of the PA Program. “It gives them a chance to show leadership, to potentially influence children’s health and to showcase the PA profession.”