OU-HCOM students selected for prestigious fellowship program

In 2010, OU-HCOM joined with the Ohio State University College of Medicine as an academic partner and sponsor in the newest site for the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF), one of only 12 such programs in the nation. Originally
founded in 1940 to support Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s medical work in Africa,
ASF is today a national nonprofit organization with a mission to develop
“Leaders in Service” who are dedicated and skilled in meeting the health
needs of underserved communities and whose example influences and
inspires others.

Each fellow partners with a community based organization to help identify an unmet health need, design a year-long 200-hour service project with a demonstrable impact on that need, and bring that project from idea to implementation to results.

Three second-year OU-HCOM students are among the 250 students selected nationwide to deliver more than 40,000 hours of health related community service as part of their fellowships. Laura Ford will design a program to help reduce disease through better health habits and lifestyle modification. Bridget Schoeny plans to implement an opiate addiction intervention program and Amanda
Timmel will develop a childhood obesity intervention program for
Appalachian youth.

Two OU-HCOM students selected as Columbus-Athens fellows in 2011 have recently finished their fellowships.

For the past year, Kimberly Herrmann has worked with students at
Trimble High School in Glouster, Ohio, to create a peer education and
mentoring program for those interested in health and social services careers. “A key element of the program was for the kids to run their own health fair at the school. Ultimately, we were teaching them to teach others,” Herrmann said.

She and other medical students visited the high school bimonthly to teach
on a different health topic in preparation for the health fair at the end of the
school year. The program paired students with mentors pursuing professional health careers, including future doctors, pharmacists and nurses, and gave
them hands-on practice with anatomy specimens and microscopes. The medical school admissions team initiated a game to engage the students in thinking about college and the admissions process. Herrmann continues to work with
medical students to keep the program going and hopes to expand it to other high
schools.

Heather Datsko partnered with Good Works, an organization that helps people struggling with poverty in Appalachia. She started two programs: Health for Life, a weekly lifestyle program for adults, that included exercises and recipes for healthy snacks, and a weekly children’s program that taught participants how different body parts worked and ways to keep them healthy.

After talking with a child who had missed a session, Datsko realized the impact of the program. “She heard how much fun the session had been and asked if she could still get the information and do the activities. These people are really taking this in and want to learn more,” Datsko said.

The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship is administered through the Consortium
for Health Education in Appalachian Ohio, OUHCOM’s Area Health
Education Center.