by Carla Saavedra-Santiago
You are preparing
a presentation on good dental hygiene for elementary school
students. Where do you go for a model of a giant tooth? Where
would you find pamphlets on smoking cessation and a jar
containing the accumulation of a year’s worth of cigarette tar
from a smoker’s lungs? The Area Health Education Center.
The Area Health
Education Center’s (AHEC) resource library houses many
interesting and educational items available for health-related
presentations. AHEC is having an open house for university
faculty, staff and students to showcase its services and
resources and to inform them of the center’s move from Irvine to
Grosvenor.
The open house
will take place Friday, Jan. 26, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.,
Grosvenor 020.
AHEC is a
national and state health profession education program that
bridges health training resources and community needs. The
university’s center, one of six in Ohio, was established in the
late 1970s in collaboration with OU-COM to promote and support
clinical training opportunities in local communities for
health-profession students.
In 1995, AHEC
began to play a role in coordinating service-learning activities
as part of the community experiences OU-COM’s first- and
second-year medical students are required to complete. The
resource library was established to give them the materials
needed to enhance their presentations.
The AHEC program
was created by the U.S. Congress in 1971 to recruit, train and
retain health professionals dedicated to improving the health
status of underserved communities, in large part, by bringing
the resources of academic medicine to help meet community needs.
The library isn’t
limited to big teeth and cigarette tar. Students can find
material on virtually any health-related subject from breast
cancer to AIDS to bike safety.
Brochures,
posters and models that describe the causes and effects of
osteoporosis are available and can be used for presentations on
geriatric health at senior citizen centers. Life-sized baby
dolls can be used in child-care presentations, while AIDS
pamphlets can be utilized by students making STD presentations
at local high schools, says Ellen Peterson, R.N., AHEC
continuing education coordinator.
The library also
can be used by people from local communities who give health
presentations.
Tracy McKibben,
administrative assistant, operates the library and Kim
Resanovich, R.N., coordinates AHEC’s service-learning
opportunities. The AHEC program became a part of Community
Health Programs (CHP) almost two years ago and is administered
by Kathy Trace, director of CHP.
The library is
open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- 30 -
News for the week of Jan 15 – Jan 20
