Skip to main content

Train-the-Trainer Program for Women’s Health Coming to the Lowcountry

Lowcountry AHEC has partnered with Palmetto Health Richland Perinatal, the University of South Carolina (USC) Arnold School of Public Health and Low Country Healthy Start to plan a “Train-the-Trainer” program to improve the interconception health of Low Country Healthy Start clients. The interconception period refers to the time between pregnancies, including, but not limited to, the postpartum period. Palmetto Health Richland Obstetric Outreach Educator Michelle Flanagan, RNC, BSN, and USC Arnold School of Public Health doctoral student Kaleea Lewis have been working with Lowcountry AHEC and Low Country Healthy Start to design modules that would complement and improve the education already being implemented by Low Country Healthy Start.

The first module, Nutrition in Pregnancy and Postpartum, addresses this important time in a woman’s health and was presented in February at the Low Country Healthy Start office in Orangeburg.  The 1.5 hour program provided skills and information to the Healthy Start client navigators to enable them to instruct clients about improving their health during the time between pregnancies.  The importance of a healthy diet and physical activity to manage weight gain were discussed along with instruction of food diary use for clients. 

This program is the first in a series of Interconception Education Project programs, which will seek to ultimately improve the health and care of women during interconception. Future modules will include Obesity in Pregnancy and How to Prevent It, and Diseases Affecting Pregnancy. The first phase of the project will educate Low Country Healthy Start client navigators, First Steps staff and other paraprofessionals that provide home visits to women. The client navigators will then teach the nutrition curriculum to 100 of their 400 clients. This client group includes women in Allendale, Bamberg, Hampton and Orangeburg counties.

For more information please visit the Lowcountry AHEC website:  www.lcahec.com
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

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 elementar...
Read more

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...
Read more

Simulation Training Prepares Students for Rural Primary Care

Since its inception in 2021, South Carolina AHEC’s Simulation Education Training (SET) has remained a favorite experience amongst health professions students statewide. Pee Dee AHEC Scholars and other health professions students pose for the camera during a simulation Since its inception in 2021, South Carolina AHEC’s Simulation Education Training (SET) has remained a favorite experience amongst health professions students statewide. SET uses simulation-based technology to expose students to clinical environments and scenarios that mirror what providers experience in rural, medically-underserved communities. “A lot of simulations are emergent or hospital-based and students are usually being graded as a formal assessment when they participate,” said SC AHEC Curriculum Coordinator Dawn Leberknight, who was heavily involved in the development of the initiative. “We tried to make [SET] more informal to expose students to simulations before it’s high stakes, and then to really focus on rura...
Read more