Community for Children: At the Border and Beyond

1. Community for Children: At the Border and Beyond Stanley Fisch, MD; Marsha Griffin, MD; Minnette Son, MD; Judith Livingston, MEd; Elsa Morales UTHSCSA Regional Academic Health Center/UTHSCSA Department of Pediatrics BACKGROUND Community for Children is designed to prepare future physicians to provide compassionate, effective leadership within community collaborations. Community for Children’s fundamental commitment is to the vision of a world where all children have the right to enjoy the highest attainable level of health; the vision of a world where communities join together in partnership to assure that all children and adolescents attain their fullest potential; and to the vision of a world of hope for the most vulnerable and poorest of our children. This elective is a signature program of the UTHSCSA Regional Academic Health Center in partnership with UTHSCSA Department of Pediatrics, Brownsville Community Health Center, UTHSC Houston School of Public Health – Brownsville,Hospital Infantil de Tamaulipas/Ciudad Victoria, as well as clinics and community agencies in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Mexico. During this 4-week elective, participants explore the sources of health, disease and healing and examine models of health delivery on both sides of the border. They study with international public health experts, physicians, community leaders and activists, promotoras, migrant refugee health experts and families. • Facilities • Classes are at the RAHC • Experiential learning through: • community-based field work • clinics in the LRGV • children’s hospital and public health outreach in Mexico, as conditions permit. • Application • Application is open to • 4th year medical students and 2nd and 3rd year residents. Stipends and housing available. • See APPLY at: 1. Rights of the Child Workshops based on UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; meetings with attorneys and judges working in children’s rights; Interviews with child detainees and officials at U.S. federal detention centers 2. Social Determinants of Disease & Health Didactics on social determinants from an international public health perspective; Meetings with migrant clinicians and promotoras 3. Clinical Care in Resource-poor Regions Didactics on ICU care where there is no ICU; Disease and chronic illness associated with poverty; Direct patient care with faculty pediatricians; Meetings with non-allopathic healers to discuss alternative health beliefs and practices 4. The Impact of Poverty, Immigration and Violence Home visits with faculty and promotoras; Examination of roots of poverty through interaction with faculty, families, community leaders, literature; Reflective essays on experiences 5. Preparing for Advocacy Community-based advocacy project; Meetings with community activists and advocates 6. Cultural Competency Review of literature; Daily opportunities to encounter people whose language, values, affect, economics, religion, norms and politics are personally foreign to participants 7. Fostering a Culture of Compassion Guided reflection to explore how medical training supports or undermines compassion for self and others; Reflection on poverty and emotional responses to the poor among us 8. Professional Development Private time to reflect on personal meaning and sense of direction; Individualized professional development counseling; Post-elective mentoring http://www.communityforchildren.org