Sharing dialogue while promoting health and wellness
Dr. Rebecca Law received a Quick Start Grant from Memorial's Office of Public Engagement in May 2015, for her project, "Sharing dialogue while promoting health and wellness."
This project brought together final year pharmacy students with seniors and new immigrants, two vulnerable populations in St. John's, to share dialogue and to learn from one another about health and wellness issues.
Students provided presentations to one of the two groups, and the presentations were immediately followed by an open sharing session between the students and their audience, with the audience providing their knowledge / expertise about the topic area for the students' education. Topics included the following: healthy aging and dementia, falls prevention, medication safety and appropriate use, medications which may be inappropriate for seniors (Beers' criteria), and healthy eating on a budget: breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks.
The presentation materials were reviewed and vetted prior to each event and the student presentations were supervised by R. Law (project lead). The target audiences were: multicultural seniors at the Senior's Resource Centre - Newfoundland and Labrador (SRC NL), and new immigrants at the Association for New Canadians (ANC).
Dr. Law has been involved with these target audiences before, but not with undergraduate pharmacy students until Pharmacy Awareness Month 2015, when an arrangement was made for two 3rd year pharmacy students to present and interact with a group of multicultural seniors at the SRC NL about the benefits of exercise.
The responses to this project have been overwhelmingly positive from all parties. Students said that the open sharing sessions were beneficial to them and that they learned from the project activities.
Seniors said the supervised student presentations were beneficial to them and they enjoyed the open sharing sessions. And at the ANC, there was a request for an identical session elsewhere with another vulnerable population.
"Hopefully this will help to establish permanent linkages between these organizations and the School of Pharmacy and expand the students' experiential learning," said Dr. Law.