Special Thursday Series of Health Topics for Graceland Center!
Graceland Center has been selected to be a learning site for medical students who are in the Urban Medicine Program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria! What is the Urban Medicine Program?
The Urban Medicine Program (UMED) is a 4-year curricular program that runs in parallel to the medical school curriculum. UMED is dedicated to training a workforce of future physician leaders, regardless of specialty, who are committed to partnering with local organizations to address health disparities through service learning and advocacy. UMED accomplishes this through seminars, workshops, medical colloquia, and long-term involvement with community-based organizations via the Longitudinal Community Rotation (LCR). The UMed program focuses on four main themes:
*Disparities in healthcare access and outcomes
*Community engagement
*Diversity and intercultural communication
*Policy and advocacy
Mission
The mission of the Urban Medicine (UMed) Program is to train a workforce of lifelong physician-leaders who are committed to partnering with local organizations to address health disparities by promoting justice in systematically oppressed communities through service learning and advocacy.
Graceland Center has 3 first year medical students who have chosen to do their UMED service with our participants! Knowing that older adult health needs are a priority and that Graceland Center is working to promote healthy aging, these students chose our location as a place where they can learn more about how to advocate for health for older adults! Welcome to Charmi Patel, Genesis Abad and Quentin Daniel!
We are fortunate to receive 3 learning sessions with the students. Our first session was October 22nd. The students presented "Get More Out of Your Healthcare: Learn. Navigate. Take Charge". The students reviewed how to set up a MyChart account with the primary healthcare systems in Peoria, how to message, get a test result, and maintain an accurate medication list. Choices regarding when and how to contact providers were discussed including how to ask the most important questions regarding health care. "What is my main problem?" "What do I need to do?" and "Why is it important for me to do this?"
The students helped participants set up accounts and answered many questions of concerns. We are looking forward to their next presentation Thursday, November 19th at 1230 pm!
