Page 15 - Christiana Care Focus August 2018

Residents learn about the daily struggles associated with poverty as they try to gain employment, access transportation and do other tasks that many people take for granted.
As a result, the Alliance of Independent
Academic Medical Centers has fostered
an initiative to advance health advocacy
through resident education that seeks to
help clinicians better understand vulner-
able and marginalized populations, said
Robert Dressler, M.D., MBA, quality and safety
officer, Christiana Care iLEAD. For Christiana
Care, which has developed a curriculum around this theme, the poverty simulation is the first training for residents on the socio-economic determinants of health.
OB-GYN physician Arlene Smalls, M.D., a leader of the curriculum initiative to advance health advocacy through education, said
the poverty simulation was selected because it has been used effectively in different settings around the nation, though Christiana Care is one of the first teaching hospitals to use it with first-year residents.
In June, representatives from Drexel University observed the simulation, and they have scheduled two such events in late August for medical students and second-year residents, with Christiana CAare representatives participating in both, said Dr. Smalls.
fter the poverty simulation, residents surveyed are
less likely to agree that “people on low incomes do
not have to work as hard because of all the services available to them” and “people are generally responsible
for whether they are poor — they get what they have earned or deserved.” However the research on the simulation is still in its early stages, said Loretta Consiglio-Ward, MSN, RN, education specialist, Quality and Safety, Institute for Learning, Leadership and Development (iLEAD).
Since the first simulation in 2016, when representa- tives of six hospital-based resources as well as six vol-
unteer community organiza- tions were recruited to partic- ipate, community participation
has been an important element.
“Many residents go straight through high school, college and medical school, and
so they know medicine, but when they go to take care of people they don’t always know how to connect people to
the broader services they need,” said Lisa Maxwell, M.D., associate chief learning officer. “We aim to help our learners become mindful and compassionate clinicians who are engaged in their local community.”
To help make that connection, Suzanne Tait, program director of the Beautiful Gate Outreach Center, has volunteered to be part
of the simulation each year. As an HIV-AIDS counseling service, Beautiful Gate helps Wilmington residents understand their health status and assists clients with a broad array of social services when they need referrals.
“I’m here because I want the residents to know that we are a community resource available to help their patients,” said Tait. She also devoted a morning to the simulation because she believes in its goals. “I am a big supporter of this program,” she said. “If you haven’t lived in poverty, it’s hard to imagine it, and the simulation allows that to happen. I also think humanizing what low-income people experience allows the residents to empathize with their patients — and that makes them better doctors.” 
| Residency Program
FOCUS • AUGUST 2018 13
“This is a good way for the residents to have
an early sense of where some of their poorest patients are coming from and the concerns they bring into the health care setting. It is an awakening for many of these young people.”
Dana Beckton