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The unique educational value of emergency medicine student interest groups1
The Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 427– 428, 2002 Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0736-4679/02 $–see front matter
PII S0736-4679(02)00442-0
AAEM Medical Student Forum
THE UNIQUE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE STUDENT INTEREST GROUPS Cory J. Pitre Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana Reprint Address: Cory J. Pitre, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, 1542 Tulane Avenue, TAV Box #728, New Orleans, LA 70112
e Abstract—Student interest groups offer many additional educational opportunities for medical students. The discipline of Emergency Medicine is uniquely positioned to provide medical students with additional resources that may enhance student involvement in clinical and community projects. Because of Emergency Medicine’s strong intrinsic ties with both clinical medicine and the surrounding community, students can use Emergency Medicine student interest groups to implement programs designed to help them gain clinical exposure, fuel research ideas, serve the local community, and most importantly, better themselves as medical students. Such opportunities can be advantageous to medical students entering any medical specialty. Thus, Emergency Medicine student interest groups are a unique and valuable educational resource for all medical students, providing many opportunities for students to enhance their medical education. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc.
cialty, as well as a community-based specialty, EM student interest groups provide medical students with access to unique clinical and community resources, offering students a chance to create many diverse educational opportunities. At our institution, the primary focus of the EM student interest group is to help create better medical students by offering a variety of clinical and academic opportunities to all medical students, regardless of their intended career path. Students are encouraged to become actively involved with interest group sponsored projects in both the Emergency Department (ED) and our academic and local communities. By providing many outlets for student involvement, our interest group challenges medical students to learn in a way that is different from traditional classroom learning. Such experience also provides ample access to informational resources about EM for those students who have a particular interest in the specialty. Our student interest group has a strong interest in teaching American Heart Association (AHA) courses in Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). Medical students learn how to become BLS and ACLS Instructors through both the interest group and the Section of EM at our institution. They then teach life support classes to their peers and to members of the surrounding community. All of the BLS classes managed by the EM student interest group are organized
e Keywords— emergency medicine; medical students; education; interest groups; student resources
INTRODUCTION Student specialty interest groups offer many additional educational opportunities to medical students. Emergency Medicine (EM) student interest groups in particular are a valuable educational resource for medical students. Because EM is largely a clinically based spe-
AAEM Medical Student Forum is coordinated by Raymond Roberge, West Virginia.
RECEIVED: 13 June 2001; ACCEPTED: 10 August 2001 427
MD,
of Ohio Valley Medical Center, Wheeling,
428
and taught by medical students. Because the AHA recognizes our institution as a Community Training Center, members of the community visit our institution to learn BLS and ACLS. Our interest group has also pioneered projects to take medical students into the surrounding community to educate high school students about BLS and to educate restaurant workers about how to manage foreign body airway obstruction. This effort creates a direct link between our medical school and our immediate community, allowing students to impact communities outside of our academic walls. Most importantly, teaching AHA courses challenges medical students to improve their teaching skills, a vital part of becoming an efficient patient educator. This situation is unique for our interest group and is a great example of how EM student interest groups in particular can provide medical students with educationally valuable community service opportunities. The ED is an invaluable resource for students seeking to gain additional clinical exposure. EM student interest groups can easily take advantage of this resource through a variety of student-run projects. Our interest group encourages students to get into the ED through a student volunteer program. Students volunteer for shifts in the ED and, while there, learn from EM attending physicians, residents, and even other students. This experience is advantageous for medical students because they gain clinical exposure, learn in a different environment (especially first- and second-year students), and experience EM first-hand. Medical students can utilize both the clinical and community foci of Emergency Medicine as a launching pad to initiate their own original projects, too. An excellent example of capitalizing on this opportunity is the recent implementation of the Preventive Health in the ED (Get PHED Up) program at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Developed and run entirely by medical students, this program allows medical students to teach patients about pertinent preventive health issues during their visit to the ED, challenging students to improve their patient communication skills and enhancing the quality of healthcare in the surrounding community. Clinical workshops that are sponsored by EM student interest groups can provide a didactic learning opportunity for medical students. Clinical skills such as suturing, casting, and scrubbing are easily taught in a relatively short amount of time and are good topics for workshops that are geared toward all medical students, regardless of training level. Learning clinical skills excites students about clinical medicine and teaches them important, practical skills that are useful to nearly every medical
C. J. Pitre
specialty. If an institution also houses an EM residency program, EM residents at that institution may help to provide the teaching for these clinical workshops. By involving EM residents, a clinical workshop may also provide a venue for students to meet young physicians in the specialty (a valuable learning experience in itself). To help students learn more about academic medicine, EM student interest groups may offer a student research elective. The ED patient population tends to be a cross-section of that of the surrounding community. Consequently, the ED is a great repository of data to fuel student research ideas. Our interest group offers such an elective to students at all levels of training. Interested students are encouraged to either join an established research project or organize a project of their own. Projects are conducted in the ED, exposing medical students to additional clinical medicine and allowing these students to enjoy significant interaction with EM attending physicians, EM residents, and EM ancillary staff. Moreover, this research experience grants medical students the opportunity to learn how the academic process works. Other types of academic projects are also possible. Over the course of 4 years, our EM student interest group has worked closely with the Section of EM at our institution to create a student procedure manual, an academic enterprise that benefits participants both as authors and as students. EM student interest groups are uniquely positioned to offer a great variety of community, clinical, and academic experiences to medical students. Students can use EM student interest groups as a launching pad for community involvement and can often make their own community service ideas a reality via resources available through the interest group. Additional clinical experience is always an asset to medical students, and involvement in an EM student interest group is almost certain to provide such coveted exposure. In addition, students may also learn more about academic medicine and clinical research through their school’s EM student interest group. Medical students seeking a successful career in any medical discipline should be encouraged to enhance their medical education by joining their school’s EM student interest group and by taking advantage of that group’s many educational opportunities.
Acknowledgments—The author thanks Peter Deblieux, MD, for his enthusiasm and encouragement and Patrick O’Malley for his hard work and vision with the Get PHED Up project.
PII S0736-4679(02)00442-0
AAEM Medical Student Forum
THE UNIQUE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE STUDENT INTEREST GROUPS Cory J. Pitre Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana Reprint Address: Cory J. Pitre, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, 1542 Tulane Avenue, TAV Box #728, New Orleans, LA 70112
e Abstract—Student interest groups offer many additional educational opportunities for medical students. The discipline of Emergency Medicine is uniquely positioned to provide medical students with additional resources that may enhance student involvement in clinical and community projects. Because of Emergency Medicine’s strong intrinsic ties with both clinical medicine and the surrounding community, students can use Emergency Medicine student interest groups to implement programs designed to help them gain clinical exposure, fuel research ideas, serve the local community, and most importantly, better themselves as medical students. Such opportunities can be advantageous to medical students entering any medical specialty. Thus, Emergency Medicine student interest groups are a unique and valuable educational resource for all medical students, providing many opportunities for students to enhance their medical education. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc.
cialty, as well as a community-based specialty, EM student interest groups provide medical students with access to unique clinical and community resources, offering students a chance to create many diverse educational opportunities. At our institution, the primary focus of the EM student interest group is to help create better medical students by offering a variety of clinical and academic opportunities to all medical students, regardless of their intended career path. Students are encouraged to become actively involved with interest group sponsored projects in both the Emergency Department (ED) and our academic and local communities. By providing many outlets for student involvement, our interest group challenges medical students to learn in a way that is different from traditional classroom learning. Such experience also provides ample access to informational resources about EM for those students who have a particular interest in the specialty. Our student interest group has a strong interest in teaching American Heart Association (AHA) courses in Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). Medical students learn how to become BLS and ACLS Instructors through both the interest group and the Section of EM at our institution. They then teach life support classes to their peers and to members of the surrounding community. All of the BLS classes managed by the EM student interest group are organized
e Keywords— emergency medicine; medical students; education; interest groups; student resources
INTRODUCTION Student specialty interest groups offer many additional educational opportunities to medical students. Emergency Medicine (EM) student interest groups in particular are a valuable educational resource for medical students. Because EM is largely a clinically based spe-
AAEM Medical Student Forum is coordinated by Raymond Roberge, West Virginia.
RECEIVED: 13 June 2001; ACCEPTED: 10 August 2001 427
MD,
of Ohio Valley Medical Center, Wheeling,
428
and taught by medical students. Because the AHA recognizes our institution as a Community Training Center, members of the community visit our institution to learn BLS and ACLS. Our interest group has also pioneered projects to take medical students into the surrounding community to educate high school students about BLS and to educate restaurant workers about how to manage foreign body airway obstruction. This effort creates a direct link between our medical school and our immediate community, allowing students to impact communities outside of our academic walls. Most importantly, teaching AHA courses challenges medical students to improve their teaching skills, a vital part of becoming an efficient patient educator. This situation is unique for our interest group and is a great example of how EM student interest groups in particular can provide medical students with educationally valuable community service opportunities. The ED is an invaluable resource for students seeking to gain additional clinical exposure. EM student interest groups can easily take advantage of this resource through a variety of student-run projects. Our interest group encourages students to get into the ED through a student volunteer program. Students volunteer for shifts in the ED and, while there, learn from EM attending physicians, residents, and even other students. This experience is advantageous for medical students because they gain clinical exposure, learn in a different environment (especially first- and second-year students), and experience EM first-hand. Medical students can utilize both the clinical and community foci of Emergency Medicine as a launching pad to initiate their own original projects, too. An excellent example of capitalizing on this opportunity is the recent implementation of the Preventive Health in the ED (Get PHED Up) program at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Developed and run entirely by medical students, this program allows medical students to teach patients about pertinent preventive health issues during their visit to the ED, challenging students to improve their patient communication skills and enhancing the quality of healthcare in the surrounding community. Clinical workshops that are sponsored by EM student interest groups can provide a didactic learning opportunity for medical students. Clinical skills such as suturing, casting, and scrubbing are easily taught in a relatively short amount of time and are good topics for workshops that are geared toward all medical students, regardless of training level. Learning clinical skills excites students about clinical medicine and teaches them important, practical skills that are useful to nearly every medical
C. J. Pitre
specialty. If an institution also houses an EM residency program, EM residents at that institution may help to provide the teaching for these clinical workshops. By involving EM residents, a clinical workshop may also provide a venue for students to meet young physicians in the specialty (a valuable learning experience in itself). To help students learn more about academic medicine, EM student interest groups may offer a student research elective. The ED patient population tends to be a cross-section of that of the surrounding community. Consequently, the ED is a great repository of data to fuel student research ideas. Our interest group offers such an elective to students at all levels of training. Interested students are encouraged to either join an established research project or organize a project of their own. Projects are conducted in the ED, exposing medical students to additional clinical medicine and allowing these students to enjoy significant interaction with EM attending physicians, EM residents, and EM ancillary staff. Moreover, this research experience grants medical students the opportunity to learn how the academic process works. Other types of academic projects are also possible. Over the course of 4 years, our EM student interest group has worked closely with the Section of EM at our institution to create a student procedure manual, an academic enterprise that benefits participants both as authors and as students. EM student interest groups are uniquely positioned to offer a great variety of community, clinical, and academic experiences to medical students. Students can use EM student interest groups as a launching pad for community involvement and can often make their own community service ideas a reality via resources available through the interest group. Additional clinical experience is always an asset to medical students, and involvement in an EM student interest group is almost certain to provide such coveted exposure. In addition, students may also learn more about academic medicine and clinical research through their school’s EM student interest group. Medical students seeking a successful career in any medical discipline should be encouraged to enhance their medical education by joining their school’s EM student interest group and by taking advantage of that group’s many educational opportunities.
Acknowledgments—The author thanks Peter Deblieux, MD, for his enthusiasm and encouragement and Patrick O’Malley for his hard work and vision with the Get PHED Up project.