Empowering Medical Students To Produce Locally And Nationally Relevant Paediatric Health Promotion Content (Beckmann, 2023)
Ganesh S., Beckmann J., Zheng C., Minson S.
Archives of Disease in Childhood 2023;108(Supplement 2): A90-A91.
The Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) Student Selected Component (SSC) at our medical school is a collaboration between the TBH student volunteering group, hospital and community paediatric clinicians, and play specialists at a large teaching hospital in a diverse borough, with a high index of child deprivation. The SSC provides second-year medical students with an opportunity to gain an understanding of locally and nationally relevant paediatric public health issues while also empowering them to utilise this knowledge by teaching health promotion in local primary schools and presenting a health promotion poster aimed at CYP to expert clinicians and peers.
Methods Students learned about local and national paediatric public health issues through structured teaching from paediatric consultants, attending paediatrics outpatient clinics at the local hospital, and (most importantly) actively learning from their visits to local primary schools and engaging with the children. Health promotion posters and their presentations were formally assessed on a range of criteria by expert clinicians to ensure the accuracy of information and relevance of public health messaging.
Results Through the range of teaching methods, students learned about the high rates of dental decay and childhood obesity in the borough, as well as the importance of culturally relevant health promotion messaging. Across three cycles of the SSC blocks, 6 different primary schools were visited by students, and 36 health promotion posters were produced. Figure 1 shows the range of health promotion themes covered. After discussion with our teaching hospital's paediatrics outpatient team, the posters will be used as a fun and accessible means of health promotion for CYP in clinic waiting rooms. A selection of these posters will be displayed during this presentation, with examples shown in figure 2.
Conclusion We present an innovative undergraduate education course allowing students to learn about local and national public health issues while producing factually accurate and relevant health promotion for their local community. We plan to update the posters displayed in the local hospitals as the students produce more SSC posters.