Med-Peds Serves the Community and are Patient Advocates
Our residents, faculty and health care staff are invested in our community and advocacy endeavors. There are many opportunities for advocacy, community engagement, and service through our Med-Peds residency program as well as through our categorical Internal Medicine and categorical Pediatric residency programs. Our residents also participate in experiences that help them further understand healthcare barriers and social determinates of health. For example, during residency orientation, we provide residents the opportunity to participate in a poverty simulation as well as a panel discussion with community resource leaders to foster awareness of community resources, barriers to care, and opportunities for healthy living. These experiences provide an overview to help residents think about their role as advocates for patients and their communities.
Community and Advocacy Committee
Community and Advocacy is a core pillar of our residency program. Our committee is comprised of passionate Med-Peds resident leads, faculty mentors, and resident volunteers who organize and participate in local service projects in partnership with community organization leaders. The committee is working on expanding these projects to medical students as well. Multiple times throughout the year, Med-Peds residents volunteer and collaborate with local community organizations including the Food Bank of Delaware, United Way of Delaware, Friendship House, Habitat for Humanity, Family Promise, and many more. Every year, Med-Peds residents organize semi-annual donation drives (e.g. food drives, book drives) as a way to give back to the community. Most recently, the Med-Peds residents organized a food drive that collected over 230 pounds of food for the Food Bank of Delaware!
Community Health and Resources
During orientation, all residents participate in a panel discussion with community organization leaders and community health workers to discuss the many resources available to address healthcare barriers and social determinants of health. Additionally, residents also receive interdisciplinary education regarding resources available within our own clinic to address healthcare barriers for our own patients. This includes a panel discussion with our colleagues who work as health guides, social workers, community health workers, language interpreter services, and many more.
Poverty Simulation
During ChristianaCare orientation, all residents participate in a poverty simulation, a guided experience designed to simulate the challenges of living with limited resources and help residents to better understand and empathize with our patients’ everyday stressors. This window into many of our patient’s lived experience enables residents to think about their role as advocates for patients and their community. In addition, volunteers from a variety of community resources participate in the event and offer the opportunity to learn about the resources available to patients in Delaware.
Community Tour (During orientation)
In partnership with Nemours Children’s Health, our residents have the opportunity to immerse in the community during orientation and visit organizations that are key resources for our patients and families.
Examples of organizations include:
- Sunday Breakfast Mission
- Kingswood Community Center
- Teen Warehouse
- Sean’s House
- Ferris School
- St. Patrick’s Cetner Food Pantry
- Planned Parenthood
- Latin American Community Cetner
- Women Infant Children’s (WIC) Office, Jessup Street
- West End neighborhood House
- SOAR (Survivors in Abuse Recovery)
- Mazzoni Center (Philadelphia Tour)
This experience begins with various resources on a Bingo Card, and residents have the opportunity to visit locations in Philadelphia and Delaware to complete this activity while immersing in the community and learning how to support our patients’ needs with a variety of rich resources.
Literacy Advocates
In partnership with Get Delaware Reading and Reading Angels, which aims to enhance literacy in school-aged children throughout Delaware, Med-Peds residents and faculty participate multiple times a year in read-alouds at local elementary schools. This past year, our Advocacy committee also partnered with Get Delaware Reading to organize a community book drive.
School-Based Wellness
As members of the School Health Committee of the Medical Society of Delaware, several Med-Peds residents and faculty have been involved in many state-wide school-based health initiatives. Our residents/faculty also participate in meetings to discuss topics that impact the health of school-aged children in DE.
Several <ed-Peds residents and faculty have also traveled to Delaware public middle schools to teach seventh grade students about healthy living. This project has been so successful that both our Governor and Lieutenant Governor have declared a Healthy Living Week in the state! In addition, our initial results were published in the September 2011 Delaware Medical Journal, “Back to School: Using Physicians to Teach Middle School Health”: Volume 83 No 9; pages 277-282.
Med-Peds residents have also given presentations to students in our First State School. The First State School gives children and adolescents who would otherwise be homebound with serious illnesses (diabetes, sickle-cell anemia, severe asthma, cancer) the chance to attend school though their conditions preclude attendance at public or private schools. Presentation topics include healthy eating, obesity prevention, issues surrounding puberty, and general wellness. Many of these topics are in line with the Medical Society of Delaware’s “It’s OBVIOUS” campaign, striving to educate children and families about key health concerns among Delaware youth. Additionally, residents also rotate through school-based health centers embedded in Delaware Public Schools as part of their clinical block experiences.
Free Community-Wide Health Clinics and Health Fairs
Residents volunteer at the Orange Street clinic, part of the Salvation Army Women and Children’s shelter, to provide acute and chronic care, immunizations, and counseling services, in conjunction with the Pediatric Residents from A. I. duPont Hospital for Children, on a bi-monthly basis. We are in the process of expanding the services of this clinic to provide care for adults as well.
In previous years, we have also co-organized and sponsored a mini health fair at the Wilmington Senior Center and also at Wilmington’s Connections Homeless Café. Over 100 people participated in these events, and patients received free lipid and glucose screenings, blood pressure reading, BMI, flu shots and healthy living discussions. We have been able to organize a similar event at the Glasgow, DE Boys and Girls club as well as the Christina Cultural Arts Center, where we provided interactive education about exercise and injury prevention, nutrition, dental health, and general wellness.
Our residency was instrumental to funding/furnishing the Sunday Breakfast Mission Women and Children’s Shelter and help with yearly Thanksgiving food drives. In addition, each year we participate in Wilmington Wellness Day and the Ministry of Caring Holiday “Adopt-a-Family” and Thanksgiving food drives.
Medical Camps
Our residents also have the opportunity to volunteer at Kay’s Kamp, a local week-long camp for children battling cancer. They serve as part of the medical team caring for the children and helping to ensure that their time at camp is safe and healthy, in addition to loads of fun. Residents work with the Medical Director, and other members of the medical staff to help provide routine medical care, dispense medications, and provide acute care for urgent issues that arise during the camp.
Pediatric Advocacy
Our residents receive lectures from child advocates within the community. We have been able to apply these skills at the state level. Medical students and residents are able to attend the Kids Caucus, which is a bi-partisan group of government officials to promote health and welfare of Delaware’s children. Typically, this event is paired with an opportunity to meet with the Governor of Delaware.
AAP Legislative Advocacy Conference
Several scholarships per year are awarded from the Delaware Chapter of the American of Pediatrics to send a resident, fellow or attending for a 3-day training session to advocate on a timely pediatrics issue in Washington, D.C.
Legislative Day ACP
Each year residents/fellows have the opportunity to go to ACP Legislative Day to advocate on timely adult health issues.
Health Policy
Get the opportunity to attend meetings longitudinally with state officials and learn health policy from our Office of Governmental Affairs. Getting involved with Health Policy is one way to advocate for patients and physicians. Select residents also serve as DE representatives in the Medical Society of Delaware, partaking in discussions related to health policy and the future of medicine in DE.
Pediatric Community Events
We have partnered with local vendors to help provide necessary items to our patients. We have a Quilts for Comfort program in which volunteers make quilts and we distribute to all our new patients. One child from our practice was recently presented with the 9000th volunteer made quilt. In addition to our quilt program, we have now started a “Healthy Babies Begin Here” project to provide our infants with all necessary items, including sleep sacks, car seats, toothbrushes, socks, and oral thermometers.
With our pediatric residents, we participate in Asthma Day, a yearly event, in Philadelphia where we educate and empower children about their medical diagnosis.
Medical Legal Partnership (MLP)
In 2015, ChristianaCare officially formed a medical-legal partnership with Community Legal Aid Society, Inc., allowing our low-income clinic patients to access free legal services to better address some of the social determinants of health. One of our residents has been involved in developing a screening tool for use in all patients at the clinic, participating in projects monitoring the efficacy of this partnership, and educating health care providers on the benefits and appropriate use of medical-legal partnership referrals.