The Indians Into Medicine CLIMB program builds community and acclimates new students to the rigors of medical education.<\/p>\n
Choosing her words carefully, Kendra Roland, a fourth-year medical student at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS), sought to convey the significance of the sewing project she was helping manage with first-year Indigenous medical students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here for anything. Just being there . . . providing support.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was referencing her portion \u2013 \u201cHonoring the Seventh Generation: A Student Doctor Approach to Leadership and Respect for Indigenous Cultures\u201d \u2013 of this year\u2019s 10-day Career and Life Instruction for Matriculation Building (CLIMB) program within the School\u2019s Indians Into Medicine (INMED) program.<\/p>\n
Designed to help new medical students acclimate to the rigors and culture of medical school and develop a sense of community prior to the start of classes, CLIMB connects veteran students like Roland with students still learning the ropes at North Dakota\u2019s only medical school.<\/p>\n
Even more, it connects medical students at all levels with the local Indigenous community, students in INMED\u2019s Summer Institute (or SI, a five-week, on-campus academic enrichment session for Indigenous students entering grades 7-12 who are exploring careers in healthcare), and INMED\u2019s Med Prep program, a summer program for American Indian college upperclassmen and graduates who are preparing to take or retake the Medical College Admissions Test and apply to medical school.<\/p>\n
In this case, Roland, with the help of a grant from the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) medical honor society designated for health equity projects and \u201cunderserved communities,\u201d had found a new way to embed community service into the CLIMB program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of the program is to help get students better prepared for medical school academically, yes, but probably more importantly to create a social network support system,\u201d said Yvette LaPierre, an academic advisor for INMED who manages the CLIMB program. \u201cGetting to know each other, getting to know the faculty and staff, and getting to know the community. This matters because INMED students tend to come from across the country and have less of an immediate support system here in Grand Forks.\u201d<\/p>\n
As LaPierre put it, educational activities embedded within CLIMB include an introduction to the medical curriculum, a tour of the School\u2019s library resources and research facilities, and sessions on financial literacy, study and test-taking strategies, personal wellness strategies, and field trips and social events around the community and region.<\/p>\n
The latter was on tap this past July at Roland\u2019s session at the new INMED space in the SMHS building in Grand Forks.<\/p>\n
Roland and a handful of her colleagues, including first-year INMED students, were hard at work cutting ribbon, backstitching calico, and punching leather, all in an effort to make ribbon skirts and moccasins for Indigenous infants in the North Dakota. Made possible through an AOA Medical Student Service Leadership Project Grant, the project \u201ctakes an Indigenous-led approach to leadership and mentorship of younger students through cultural connectivity,\u201d said Roland.<\/p>\n
Gesturing to the first-year medical students, Roland said that the idea is to build bonds \u2013 and trust \u2013 not only among Indigenous students from different Tribes, but between future health providers and their future patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students \u2013 the mentees \u2013 write down their name, where they\u2019re from, and write a short message to the mom and their baby as a way of addressing health equity and disparities \u2013 to give light to our native babies being born,\u201d Roland added. \u201cWe all bond through crafting and then distribute the final products to families across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cskirts and moccs\u201d program accomplishes this by providing Indigenous infants and their parents with health information and support, and encouraging mothers in particular to pursue prenatal health for unborn babies, well-child visits for their newborns, and maternal health for themselves.<\/p>\n
The medical students then engage the younger SI students, who are also on campus in July, hoping to water the seeds that INMED has already planted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole premise is honoring the seventh generation,\u201d Roland explained. \u201cSeven generations meaning: everything we do now should be considered in light of those who came before us and for those who will come after. We\u2019re trying to start [Indigenous] students young and mentor them from a young age, showing them they can be successful and giving them support on their future endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having originated several years ago in the SMHS Office of Student Affairs & Admissions, CLIMB took off in recent years, said LaPierre, when she and her INMED colleague Kathleen Fredericks \u2013 who coordinates INMED\u2019s Med Prep program \u2013 found a way of embedding the program within INMED.<\/p>\n
This move, along with feedback from previous CLIMBers, allows LaPierre to modify CLIMB to better meet the needs of each unique student cohort. Whereas one cohort could use more help in biochemistry, for example, another might want more exposure to histology content in advance of medical school.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce CLIMB got through year or two, I developed a debrief for students, asking them to identify what went well, what they learned during CLIMB that helped them in their first year, or what they wish they would have learned,\u201d LaPierre continued. \u201cThose conversations led to some changes, like adding the introduction to histology and immunology courses. Everyone struggles with immunology, but it seems like a lot of INMED students are coming in without much histology knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cdebrief\u201d in question is a pre- and post-test that LaPierre gives CLIMBers to assess how the program is helping them make the transition to medical school in North Dakota.<\/p>\n
\u201cComparing pre-and post-tests, students generally come into CLIMB much more worried and apprehensive. But they come out of it feeling more confident, understanding better what\u2019s going to be expected of them as students and what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond community building, though, said Roland, is the fact that combining the extra biomedical education with social activities also teaches new students about the social determinants of health, especially those that affect Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cInfant mortality, access to prenatal care, all of the postnatal things that we need \u2013 these are huge in the Indigenous community,\u201d Roland said.<\/p>\n
So it is that an activity like assembling clothing for Indigenous infants helps animate the training that students both will have already received and will be absorbing over the next several months and years.<\/p>\n
LaPierre agreed, noting that the extra practice the cohort gets in the School\u2019s small group-based patient-centered learning (PCL) model brings all of this \u2013 science content, social determinants, community-building \u2013 together, helping retain Indigenous students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntroducing students to PCL is one of the things that most helps them feel confident when they start medical school,\u201d she concluded, \u201cbecause they understand how the process works. They\u2019ve already practiced this bit and can hit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indians Into Medicine CLIMB program builds community and acclimates new students to the rigors of medical education. Choosing her words carefully, Kendra Roland, a fourth-year medical student at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS), sought to convey the significance of the sewing project she was helping manage with first-year Indigenous medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":12462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3189,1925,1456,2766,450,3192,2767,3190,3191],"class_list":["post-12372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-career-and-life-instruction-for-matriculation-building","tag-climb","tag-indians-into-medicine","tag-infant","tag-inmed","tag-lapierre","tag-maternal-mortality","tag-medprep","tag-roland"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n