While some medical students spend all their time buried in books, Alpert Medical School first- and second-year students are getting real-world experience working in under-served communities.
Since winning a $2.6 million federal grant in 2004, the Alpert Medical School has established a program to educate, train and recruit students and healthcare professionals to work in low-income communities in Rhode Island.
The Area Health Education Center program, based out of the Med School, has branches in Woonsocket, Cranston and Newport that work with community health centers, clinics and hospitals on projects and training workshops for healthcare providers, said Robert Trachtenberg, associate director of the program. Trachtenberg said the AHEC program gives students the opportunity to "get exposure to community health centers in underserved communities (and learn) about compelling issues in the health care industry."
The center gives grants to students in health-related studies for projects and to local clinics to support their operations. Staff at the Newport center are working on two projects to examine respiratory diseases prevalent among public-housing residents in Newport County, identify the sources of pollution in surrounding areas and develop interventions, said Marilyn Moy, executive director of the Newport center.
Currently, there are about 215 AHECs in 47 states that receive funding from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Trachtenberg said, adding that the Rhode Island AHEC program is "one of the newer ones." Last December, the Medical School received a renewal grant of $3.2 million from HHS to continue and expand the program, Trachtenberg said. The AHEC program also receives support from the Med School, in addition to the grant.
Trachtenberg said the Med School "contributes a great deal" to the program, providing "in-kind, administrative support." Trachtenberg, Associate Dean of Medicine Arthur Frazzano and Roni Phipps, community-based mentor and cooridinator, staff the center's main location at the Med School.
In conjunction with the AHEC program, the Med School offers a two-year "doctoring" course required for all first- and second-year medical students, Phipps said.
As part of the course, each student works with a community-based physician at health centers in underserved communities to "practice their (medical interviewing and physical diagnosis) skills in the real world," Phipps said.
Students work at sites like the HIV/AIDS clinic of Miriam Hospital, the Thundermist Health Center and the Rhode Island Free Clinic, she said.
Programs like the AHEC are "much needed and important," said Associate Dean of Medicine Stephen Smith, a physician-mentor in the doctoring course and a volunteer at the Rhode Island Free Clinic.
"(Today) ample numbers of doctors are going into areas overpopulated with doctors, but rural and inner-city areas have a shortage of doctors," he said.
Angela Sherwin '07 GS MD '13 worked with a medical studentunder Trachtenberg this summer to educate Rhode Island businesses about sex trafficking. Over the summer, she created a brochure about sex trafficking to educate businesses and organizations near alleged trafficking sites like spas and massage parlors, she said. She also created a guide to conducting medical interviews with victims and potential victims of sex trafficking for health-care providers.
"(AHEC) is a fantastic program that really connects students in medicine and health to the community and provides support for building those community relationships," Sherwin said.
Kirsten Spalding '04 MD'09 said she received a grant from AHEC for the summer of 2006 to survey medical students and staff at underserved community health centers about rotating third and fourth-year students through these centers to gain hands-on experience.
If medical students are given the opportunity to work in underserved communities they are more likely to pursue careers in similar areas, Spalding said.
