Community Engagement

Editor’s Note: Cora Peine is a faculty member at the Master’s of Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS) program at St. Catherine University. For several months during the previous school year, her students have been participating in community engagement activities at Roosevelt High School. Two of her students submitted these insightful reports as part of their activities at the high school, and Peine thought that the readers of the Messenger might find them interesting. Thanks to her and the students for sharing them with us.

The Art of Medicine: lessons learned in a teenage wasteland

By CHRIS EDQUIST

“Don’t just lecture us about drugs and alcohol.” This was one of several messages I heard from a focus group designed to help us determine what we should include in Roosevelt High School’s annual health fair. As I listened to these 15-17 year olds, all I could think was “of course we’re going to cover drugs and alcohol.” After all, it’s too big of an issue to skip. There’s no way we can have a high school health fair and not talk about drugs and alcohol. Internally, I concluded that they were delusional and dismissed their opinions.

Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to work in an ethnically, racially, and socioeconomically diverse high school environment in the past. I coached an inner city high school basketball team in Chicago, and the students at Roosevelt remind me so much of my former players. I love collaborating with, and learning from, people with different backgrounds, and I love working with youth. I was so excited to see an inner city high school as an option for our spring volunteer experience. I was in my comfort zone, which is what makes my reaction to that focus group so disappointing. Those “kids” taught me a valuable lesson that extends beyond a volunteer experience. They taught me to leave my agenda at the door and just listen.

Over the past several weeks, we have moved forward with planning our health fair and of course, drugs and alcohol will be a component. In my haste to dismiss their opinions as immature, I missed their point. It wasn’t about the drugs and alcohol. It was about how we deliver our message. All they wanted to convey is the importance of making a connection with the students and presenting the information in a creative, fun way. If we can accomplish that, students will be more excited and engaged at the fair.

In a couple of short years, I’ll have the honor and privilege of treating patients. They will openly and honestly share their deepest concerns and most intimate thoughts with me as they seek my valued opinion as a medical provider. Among the responsibilities I will have, a key role will be educating patients about their risks and supporting them in making healthy decisions. This will require listening, understanding, and empathy. Those are precisely the characteristics that I missed the mark on with the focus group. We can cram as much medical knowledge into our brains as possible, but ultimately our most powerful tool is our humanity.

Listening, empathizing, and genuinely seeking to understand the issue from the patient’s point of view is what truly matters. Thank you, Roosevelt students, for reminding me what it means to be a great provider.

Teenagers

By RYAN KINGSLEY

At what point do we cross the threshold of adulthood? More specifically, when do teenagers see us as grown-ups? I found myself asking this as I stood in a high-school gym class, surrounded by kids, boys mostly, who horsed around on the machines, talked to their friends and cast the most disinterested glances they could muster in my direction. I wander from group to group attempting to strike up a conversation; I have to avoid the platitudes I have come to rely on as a PA student like, “What specialty are you going into?” How did I forget how to speak to anyone who isn’t an adult or a baby? So I ask them about college, their favorite classes, and sports; they begrudgingly respond in mumbling, monosyllabic, grunts while slowly sliding away as if physical proximity to an adult will infect them with oldness.

Some of this is, of course, normal teenage angst, but I sometimes wonder how I will speak to patients this age. In primary care, I may be the only person my patient speaks to about their problem. If I cannot connect with them, and they cannot trust me, what good am I to them? There will always be patients from different walks of life with whom it will be difficult to relate. Teenagers, on the other hand, are a different breed.

I came to Roosevelt High School to help teach help students in health classes and plan a health fair. I was intent on doing just that; I was going to teach these students and become a better health care provider because of it. Now that I have been here for a few weeks, my mission is to learn to relate, which is much easier said than done. I have not had much contact with high school age people since, well, high school. It is easy to get so wrapped up in the grind of work, school, kids, and family that you lose touch with how teenagers operate. This community engagement site exposes a glaring flaw in my communication skills, and for that I am grateful.

Knowing this, I can continue to work on my approach to talking to teenagers. As a PA, I can use these skills to relate better to my patients and become more useful to the community I serve. We as providers must always stay connected to our most valuable assets, our ability to establish relationships and rapport with our patients.