Enhancing Medical Students' Leadership Skills for Community Health

1. LOCUS: Preparing Medical Students for Community Health Leadership

2. Goals • Understand the medical, educational, cultural, political and socioeconomic environment out of which the need for LOCUS developed. • Reflect on the concept of leadership and understand the importance of leadership in medicine.

3. GOALS • Review the LOCUS core curriculum, the program’s structure, its active learning components, and its goals and desired outcomes • Understand the evolution of the program, challenges to its survival, and its growth over time.

4. LOCUS 1999

5. CONTEXT • Health system challenges • Inequities: access, quality • Escalating costs • Ever expanding knowledge • Medical education • Reductionistic, biomedical focus • “Coveritis”, burn out, cynicism • Role of physicians in society

7. Context continued • Social accountability • Physician’s as stewards and servants • Responsibility to society • Leadership for change • Education for leadership • Community of shared values • Mentoring, encouragement and feedback

8. LOCUS GATHERING 2000

9. LOCUS • Definition: a place • Leadership • Opportunities with • Communities, the medically • Underserved and • Special populations

10. LOCUS Logistics • 15 to 18 LOCUS fellows per medical school class • Each LOCUS fellow: • Is paired with both a faculty and a student mentor • Participates in approximately 20 hours per year • Completes a community health project • “LOCUS is for life”

12. LOCUS Core Content • Introduction to leadership • Leadership and one’s self • Leadership and others • Leadership and communities

13. Introduction to Leadership • Challenges in health care • Importance of leadership • Leadership styles • Qualities of leaders • Mentors and role models

14. Leadership and One’s Self • Describe personal mission, goals, priorities • Find strategies to achieve balance between personal and professional lives • Solicit feedback • Engage in self-reflection and self-assessment • Adjust goals through career

15. Leadership and Others • Develop team skills: listening, collaborating, delegating, giving and receiving feedback, acknowledge contributions of others • Lead effective meetings: agendas, keeping on time, summaries, follow-up actions • Identify and address conflicts: understand one’s own responses, mediation skills

16. Leadership and Health Issues in Communities • Identify local and global health challenges • Recognize complex determinants of health • Reflect on the roles and responsibilities of physicians in improving conditions for health

17. Leadership and Community Health Methods • Community oriented primary care (COPC) • Evidence-based public health • Ecological models • Logic model • Community health needs assessments

18. Leadership and Health Activist Skills • Community networking and organizing • Fund raising • Non-violent protests • Writing skills: • Letters to the editor • Position statements • Oral communications: • Public speaking, radio and television interviews • Testifying in government hearings

19. Community Health Service Projects • Conduct community health needs assessments: • Rapid appraisal and surveys • Key informant interviews • Access health data • Select project framework • Conduct project • Assess, present and celebrate outcomes

20. LOCUS 2000

21. Evolution and Opportunities • Student Issues • Faculty Issues • School Issues • Sustainability

22. Student Issues • Interest growing, student applications increasing • Student desire to keep personal and limited in size • Greater interest in self-initiated new projects • Issues of individual vs group projects • Issues of individual interests vs community needs

23. Faculty Issues • School-based faculty • Community faculty • Time • Value • Reward

24. School Issues • Informal vs formal curriculum • Credit vs No Credit • Recognition for “Honors”

25. Sustainability • School and Department role • AHEC • Community Partnerships

26. LOCUS GATHERING 2002