Home away from home
Posted: November 1, 2011
The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) meets the vital primary care needs of more than 20 million Americans in more than 3,600 communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
And it’s at these health centers that ATSU-SOMA students spend three years completing their education and residencies at one of 11 CHC sites across the country. Each serves a unique population, which includes the homeless, migrant workers, uninsured families, and ethnically diverse patients in rural and urban settings. What they share in common is a maldistribution of physicians and an uninsured or underserved patient mix.
Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, Waianae, Hawaii Versha Srivastava, D.O., ’11: “Working with the warmhearted people of Wai’anae while being surrounded by the natural beauty of the island has been a surreal experience. The most important lesson I have learned from being here is simply ma lama kekahi i kekahi (take care of each other) – and that is the essence of life here in Hawai’i.”
These CHCs become students’ medical homes for a community campus learning experience unlike any other. ATSU faculty oversee students’ didactic activities at each site using adjunct physician faculty members at each CHC, as well as distance education and technology – and multiple site visits by Arizona-based faculty.
Frederic Schwartz, D.O., ’69, FACOFP, professor and associate dean for ATSU-SOMA community campuses, explains why students are placed in these centers so early in their training. “Students learn best if it is learned in the context where it will actually be used,” he says. “One of the hallmarks of the new science of learning is its emphasis on learning with understanding. Expert knowledge is ‘conditionalized’ – it includes a specification of the context in which it is useful.”
ATSU-SOMA’s community campuses
- Adelante Healthcare, Surprise, Ariz.
- Alabama Medical Education Consortium, Troy, Ala.
- El Rio Community Health Center, Tucson, Ariz.
- Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Ridgeland, S.C.
- HealthSource, Mt. Oreb, Ohio
- Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, Waianae, Hawaii
- Family Healthcare Network, Tulare County, Calif.
- North Country Healthcare, Flagstaff, Ariz.
- HealthPoint, Seattle, Wash.
- Northwest Regional Primary Care Association, Portland, Ore.
- Sunset Park Family Health Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.