Students get gritty introduction to reality of HIV/AIDS
CMAJ 1997;157:1503
© 1997 Heather Kent
A summer pilot project that brought AIDS patients together with nursing, pharmacy and second-year medical students from the University of British Columbia "had a huge impact" on the undergraduates, says Dr. Andrew Chalmers, the university's associate dean of undergraduate education. "I'm quite proud that we accomplished something as unique as that." The program's success means that a new interdisciplinary course is being planned at UBC for next winter.
The students spent 3 weeks getting a firsthand look at the complex issues surrounding HIV and AIDS. The research took them to 5 hospital and community clinics in Vancouver, ranging from the Palliative Care Centre at St. Paul's Hospital to the Oak Tree Clinic for women and children.
Project coordinator Paul Perchal, the director of education at AIDS Vancouver, says "learning breakthroughs" occurred in several areas as students were introduced to issues such as the predicament of women in poverty and the impact of new drug treatments. Chalmers says exposure to the seamy Downtown Eastside, with its mix of sex-trade workers and intravenous drug users, helped the students understand "the broad social determinants surrounding HIV/AIDS, the role of addiction and the need for sexual counselling." It also resulted in their "overwhelming frustration with the system," he says. [The Downtown Eastside is a ripe breeding ground for disease. It is estimated that 25% of intravenous drug users in the area are HIV positive. -- Ed.]
Cam Bowman, one of the medical students, says the summer program provided "a really great grounding in the scope of HIV/AIDS." Bowman, who continues to work at a downtown clinic once a week, says many of the area's patients "just don't care anymore. If they don't care, none of [the education and clinics] really matter."
UBC's new course will be a 4-to-6 week elective for nursing, pharmacy, nutritional sciences, social work and theology students, and second- to fourth-year medical students. Chalmers says HIV/AIDS "provides an excellent model" for teaching about delivery of health care by a team and addressing real-life issues, such as reasons why some people feel marginalized. He considers the course a prototype for a series of interprofessional electives being developed at the university. -- © Heather Kent
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