AHEC Partnership Enables Collaboration Across Oceans

The South Carolina AHEC has partnered for two years with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the American University of Beirut (AUB) to provide videoconferencing capabilities for Balint seminars between both universities. The technology allows the seminars to take place despite the faculty and students participating from separate continents. The published results of a study of the effectiveness of the videoconference seminars is now available online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25320058.

Balint seminars are "used in many family medicine residencies to improve and strengthen the patient-doctor relationship: to make better doctors" (see full paper [insert link]). Unfortunately, there is a lack of credentialed Balint leaders in developing countries; therefore, the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting Balint seminars via videoconference was investigated. Drs. Jumana Antoun and Maya Romani at AUB and Drs. Alan Johnson and Clive Brock at MUSC found that videoconference Balint seminars were indeed a promising alternative to offer the activity to providers in other disciplines, states, and countries while increasing the number of trained Balint leaders.

The South Carolina AHEC is proud to help provide the technical assistance required to make this initiative a success. To read the full paper and find out more, visit http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/6/733.long.

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Marchek Siblings Stay Connected With Upstate AHEC Through Academic Journey

A pair of siblings from Greer are giving back to current Upstate AHEC Health Careers students after completing the program themselves. Alex Marchek, MD is in his first year as a family medicine resident at Prisma Health Seneca. His younger sister by two years, Anna Marchek, is a second-year medical student at Edward Via College of Medicine (VCOM) Carolinas. “My mom likes to say she did good,” Anna joked. “Both of her kids are going to be doctors. She went two-for-two.” Anna (left) and Alex (right) Marchek are pictured with Nita Donald, Executive Director of Upstate AHEC. While Alex and Anna have both chosen to pursue medicine as a career, their interest in healthcare developed differently. Alex describes his discovery of health sciences as a slow realization. “It was definitely something that was on my radar really young,” said Alex. “My parents will say when I was six years old, I was talking about doing something in medicine. I had some really great science teachers in elementary, m

Pee Dee AHEC Clinical Placements Help Students See Challenges – and Opportunities – of Rural Primary Care

Third-year medical student Omar Guerrero didn’t find his passion for a career in healthcare until he began shadowing health professionals as an undergraduate student. “I just knew that I really loved science and working with my hands,” said Guerrero, who double-majored in Public Health and Cellular & Molecular Biology while at the University of South Florida. It all clicked for him once he was able to observe physicians in their encounters with patients. “I saw there was a real need for Spanish-speaking physicians,” said Guerrero. “There’s a lot of disconnect between providers and Spanish-speaking patients and I thought that was definitely an area that I could make a difference in.” Now in his third year at A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, Guerrero is doing a clinical placement at Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Inc. in Richland. Guerrero was connected with Pee Dee AHEC and their Health Professions Student (HPS) program wh

Maternal and Infant Health Module Sprout Available on AHEC Learning Portal

In an effort to help improve maternal and infant health outcomes in South Carolina, SC AHEC has developed a new educational module titled Sprout , which serves as a collection of information, tools and resources available in the state to support healthy mothers and babies. The module, created in partnership with the SC Office of Rural Health’s (SCORH) Family Solutions and March of Dimes of SC , can be found on the AHEC Learning Portal at www.scahec.net/learn/sprout . Sprout is an expansion from SC AHEC’s routine educational programming, as the module is targeted toward community members instead of health professionals. To make sure information is reaching all members of the public, the program simplifies or defines many terms that are used commonly in healthcare and is written in plain language that non-healthcare professionals can easily understand. “The goal is for any resident of South Carolina who is interested in supporting healthy moms and babies in their own community

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