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Pre-professionals have right SCRIPT for rural care

by Cathy Gilbert
Of The Manning Times
Thanks to an innovative program in rural health care, 20 students recently completed a five-week pre-professional experience across six different disciplines here in Clarendon County.

The South Carolina Rural Interdisciplinary Program of Training, or SCRIPT, now in its fourth year in Clarendon County, is sponsored by the Lowcountry Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in collaboration with the Pee Dee AHEC, the Mid-Carolina AHEC and the Upstate AHEC. The program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Bureau of Health Professionals.

Kristen Cowling, health profession student coordinator for the Pee Dee AHEC, said the students participating are given an intense course of study while working in the program.

“Each of the 20 students are assigned a preceptor, or mentor, based on their field of study. This year we have hosted medical students, nursing students, as well as students in nutrition, pharmacy, social work and health care administration,” she said.

Cowling said the students, from all across the state, were from the Medical University of South Carolina, the University of South Carolina, Winthrop University and Francis Marion University.

“The first week the students are here is spent in classroom activities,” Cowling said. “We learn about and discuss rural and cultural issues and talk about health care among the disciplines as well as touch on rural economic development and how it affects rural health care.”

This year SCRIPT students heard from Kay Kirkpatrick of the Department of Social Services, Carol Lepp of the Smiles Pediatric Dental Clinic, Sue Shugart and Dee Dee Gaines of Clarendon Memorial Hospital, as well as Barbara Brooks from Black River Healthcare Inc.

Valerie West, Ed.D., is the associate provost for education and student life at MUSC and is a SCRIPT faculty member.

“Clarendon County has been so wonderful to all our students,” West said. “We are so grateful for all the work the professionals of Clarendon County do to make this experience meaningful for our students. We realize that we cannot teach them everything, but this kind of program gives these students some ‘real life’ experience.”

Part of that experience includes an exercise West calls “bread-milk-gas,” as she requires the students to go into town, and compare prices for things and take notice of the people in the community. Another project West calls “hot date” and asks students to determine what young people do for fun in a rural community. Finally, West asks her students to participate in a little “Main Street shopping” wherein the students are required to talk to people in town and hear their concerns and ideas. After each exercise, the students make notes for West about their observations.

At the SCRIPT program finale last Friday, West shared some of the students’ observations.

One student made note of the difference in staff attitudes in rural versus urban hospitals.

“The lines of communication were so much more open,” said Angie Balotti, a nursing student.

At the same time, another student commented on privacy issues that are often not addressed in a small town setting.

Mary Hiott, a Manning native, MUSC medical student, and a SCRIPT participant this year, was concerned about the lack of health education in a rural setting when she overheard someone talking about another person having “a touch of AIDS.”

Angela Allen, a nursing student noted the lack of things for teens to do and wondered if that was correlated to the high incidence of teen pregnancy here.

The last three weeks of the SCRIPT program were spent in community projects.

One group worked in Lake City and developed a faith-based hypertension awareness program. Another group did an influenza awareness project out of Kingstree.

Two groups worked on Manning projects.

One group worked with the Turning Point Initiative, which is gathering community data in an effort to transform and strengthen the community’s capacity to improve and protect the health of its citizen.

SCRIPT students developed a three-pronged effort as a part of the Turning Point Initiative. Representing the “past,” they worked with project coordinator Suzette McClellan in gathering data from community surveys. Representing the “present,” they worked with last week’s health fair and for the “future” they developed a spring break camp-type experience for teens that find themselves with nothing to do when school is in recess.

The second Manning group worked closely with Dee Dee Gaines, CMH Community Health Educator, in the planning and implementation of the health fair. They helped to promote the fair with poster design and distribution, and they helped to staff the various exhibits and screenings at the fair.

According to Gaines, the health fair was a major success this year. Attendance was better than previous years and the number of people getting the different health screenings was up as much as 50 percent.

Plans for next year’s SCRIPT program are already well underway, according to Cowling.

“We are already recruiting both preceptors and students for next year,” she said. “We are so grateful for the synergy of so many disciplines willing to work with us here in Clarendon County.”
Editors note: The article ran Aug. 19 and is reprinted with permission.
 

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004
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