In an ongoing attempt to provide children with educational opportunities for their futures, hospitals and medical centers are opening their doors to aspiring health-care professionals.
The fourth annual Commonwealth Fund/Johns Hopkins Hospital Youth Mentoring Program Networking Meeting, a conference to explore how medical centers and communities can work together to develop youth and encourage them to pursue careers in health sciences, took place on Thursday at the Washington Duke Inn in Durham. Thirteen hospital representatives participated in the two-day conference.
Medical centers can play a crucial role in improving the lives of high-risk kids, said Ron Gilliard, principal of Southern High School in Durham.
"There's a correlation between poverty and the risk kids fall into," Gilliard said. "When people fall into poverty, health care is the first thing to go. Eventually, this takes a toll on [children's] energy levels, where all they think about is sleeping. However, a healthy child will develop at a normal rate."
The main purpose of the mentoring program is that it "takes kids that are high-risk and ensures that they graduate from high school." said Warren Herndon, Director of the Medical Center's youth-mentoring program. So far this school year, between 600-750 students nationwide have been introduced to the medical professions through this program.
Herndon said that the program also tries to identify and develop the students' career interests in the health-care professions. "What we want to do is get the youth at 14 to 15 years of age to get thinking on a continuum--to lay out a long-term plan," he said. "The health-care industry is shifting so fast that if you don't have a long-term plan laid out, you can easily fall through the cracks."
Medical centers that seemed in the past to be "monolithic and intimidating" now find themselves having to reach out to the community, emphasizing preventive care, said Tom Milroy, principal consultant with Tom Milroy and Associates, Inc., located in Durham.
Addressing the audience of health-care administrators, Milroy said that they can be "the pioneers within your institutions." Medical centers now have to reach out to the community and emphasize preventive care, he added.
Milroy also spoke about using the "edge concept" to improve communication links between the health-care mentors and students in the program.
"By using a concept like edge,' which by definition means having both parts being equal--theedge' is going to be a result of the meeting between the two--your relationship will not have the power implications that it might have," he said.
"The idea of `edge effect' can be taken outside of the individual realm and be taken to use in the mentoring program."
Deborah Knight-Kerr, program manager of the mentoring program, said that the program, which began in June of 1993, is doing well.
"The programs have the support of the schools, the sponsor institutions and the adults working with students interested in learning more," she said.
Gilliard said that mentoring programs with the Medical Center and other local health-care centers and personnel are very beneficial to students interested in health professions.
"It gives kids a chance to see what reality is, instead of watching a TV program or hearing someone talk," he said.
"There's nothing like reality for excellence in teaching. Reality gives kids a chance to see that academic preparation is necessary to get an entry-level position into the [health-care] field."
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