Skip to main content

Health Information Literacy Project Concludes Successful First Year

The South Carolina AHEC partnered with the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and three Lowcountry high schools for a health information literacy project. Students were charged with researching public health themes and creating educational comic books geared toward middle school students. In the process, the high school students learned about helpful resources from the NLM, gained valuable communication, research and creative skills, increased their knowledge about health careers and improved their health literacy.

Students from the three schools worked to produce the four inaugural editions of AHEC Comics. Colleton County High School students and Lowcountry AHEC partnered to create “The Expert Investigators,” a book about the public health implications of an Ebola outbreak. Lowcountry Leadership Charter School students worked in a two-semester class to produce two books: “Prescription Strength,” a book about anabolic steroid abuse and “Choosing the Way,” a book about childhood obesity and healthy lifestyle choices. Finally, North Charleston High School students, in partnership with the Raise Up mentoring program, created “Coast in Crisis,” a book about earthquake preparedness and emergency response procedures.

During the school year, the students attended workshops at the South Carolina AHEC Program Office where they learned valuable interviewing techniques and story writing skills, as well as tricks of the trade for good design and production. The students also became more proficient in determining the credibility of health information found on the Internet. Prior to the creating their storylines, the students interviewed healthcare professionals, public safety and emergency response personnel and other relevant experts to gather first-hand insight into their topic areas. In early April, two student representatives from each school along with two school liaisons and several members of the SC AHEC travelled to the National Library of Medicine in Washington , D.C. to present the project and share a sneak preview of a book with the NLM staff, including the NLM Director.

The final products are first-rate and “comic book stand” worthy. During a Red Carpet Premiere on April 29th, the students, parents, teachers, and representatives from the NLM, South Carolina AHEC, Raise Up, and the Medical University of South Carolina celebrated the launch of the first edition comic books. After listening to opening remarks and watching the project trailer, the audience was able to get autographed copies of the books, talk with the students and take plenty of “selfies” with our rising stars. The books will be available online soon.  Until then, check out the full project trailer below:



Congratulations to the students on their hard work and excellent finished products! The South Carolina AHEC looks forward to the next two years of the project and the future adventures of AHEC Comics.

For more information about the project, contact Dr. Deborah Stier Carson at carsonds@musc.edu.

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...

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...

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...