Students tackle health promotion in innovative ways
Last year, I joined the Faculty of Public Health at Phoenicia University as a part-time Assistant Professor. The university is relatively new and is on a mission to bring affordable high class university education to the underserved population in the South of Lebanon.
The course I was asked to teach was entitled “Health Promotion Programs” and was intended to give students the basic tools to understand and design a program/initiative for the improvement of public health. My background which brings together both clinical and healthcare operations and advisory was aptly suited to give the students a real world perspective on the topic.
Over the ensuing semester I had the pleasure of instructing 38 students, 37 of which were female. Classes were a mix of classic instruction and discussion. The few class rules we had included
Everyone had to participate.
Theories are just categorizations of phenomenon. There are many of them. They change. They are not written in stone.
Human behavior can never be fully encompassed by theory.
Question everything.
The ultimate goal was by the end of the semester, students could “pitch a program” to a funding agency in a well ordered manner. That meant clearly articulating their idea and objective, creating a reasonable project plan and timeline that included budgeting and resources, and most importantly estimating the economic impact of their project on the healthcare system.
While teaching young minds is gratifying in of itself, it is even more so when you see “theory” crystalized into practice. The end of year projects were amazing with titles like: Fighting Cholera Epidemics in Refugee Camps, Promoting Usage of Generic Medications, Prevention of Neural Tube Defects in Newborns, Smoking Prevention - Targeting Highly Vulnerable Youth, and many more.
The presentations and speakers were phenomenal, especially for a group of 18-20 year olds and I can honestly say they outshone many senior healthcare professionals I had coached over the years.
The picture I have shared is just a sample of how one student team created football merchandise that would encourage children to avoid smoking by tying the Anti-smoking message with an activity that is both fun, popular and healthy. It is a brilliant example of going beyond general awareness campaigns – and bordering on creating a psychological “nudge”.
