Assignments

Team leaders have been asked to let you know in advance exactly who will be reading and responding to your reflections before you begin the assignment.  The reflections are a way to make your learning visible to the team leaders and often guide mid-course correction to ensure the second week includes activity responding to learner interest.  

Answer the following questions in writing and submit as specified by your team leaders and to Blackboard. 

1. How has your understanding of social determinants of health, especially the impact of healthcare access, wellness and disease on vulnerable populations changed during this course?  

2. How do you plan to use your understanding of social determinants of health to improve provider quality and patient safety for vulnerable populations?  

Thinking about a patient encounter or case you have been a part of either previously or during this experience: 

3. With your new exposure to the PCHC, how would you now advocate for improving the health of that patient, family, and/or population?  

4. How did the case impact your self-awareness/self-assessment of your own skills and knowledge? Did you have to seek out resources (personal and/or professional) at the time to assist you in improving your understanding of the case? Would you seek resources out differently now?  

The faculty lead for your team will score reflections using this rubric.  

Required prep for the Interprofessional Exercise on September 25:  Watch lecture on deprescribing (Link is in Blackboard) and complete the Readiness Quiz  before clerkship begins) and review Healthy People 2030. (1 hour)

Readings (optional):

Relevant to Day One: 

Frontiers | Structural Racism, Health Inequities, and the Two-Edged Sword of Data: Structural Problems Require Structural Solutions (frontiersin.org)  Nancy Krieger's anti-racist approach to data.

Please work as a team to develop a powerpoint presentation for the PCHC peer and community learning session on the  last day of the clerkship. The audience includes peers, team leaders, and community partners from several clerkships.  Note that each team must be prepared to share screens during presentation via Zoom, and to upload their presentation as a pdf or ppt file to Blackboard following Presentation Day. Presentations will be recorded and made available for viewing asap (probably 3-4 hours post-presentation).  

Present as a team, identifying who will present which segments and in what order. Allow for 20 minutes total, followed by 5 minutes of questions. Teams can use their discretion in allotment of time among segments to allow emphasis on key components of the experience.  It is not necessary for every student to speak during the presentation; if not all are vocal, please explain how the team's work was divided in a way that recognizes the unique contributions of each team member. 

Presentation Segments 

Part 1 : Definition and characterization of the population of focus 

Part 2 : Interprofessional teams

Part 3 : Population health advocacy: strategies and opportunities

Part 4 : Service/ experiential learning

Part 5 : Acknowledgements

Part 1: Definition of the population of focus 

1. Identify and define the population of focus. Answer the question: As a future provider, why is this a population that  you should know more about? During your presentation, tell your peers what you have learned.  

a. Summarize key demographics, for example:

i. Geographic distribution 

ii. Age, race and class distribution 

iii. Language, culture and citizenship 

iv. Social and structural factors influencing the health of the population 

b. Identify clinically relevant needs or trends, for example:

i. Common medical risk exposures and incidence rates  

ii. Common social risk exposures and incidence rates 

iii. Spotlight on disparities and areas of strength 

Part 2: Exploring interprofessional teams of care 

As a provider in tomorrow’s complex health systems, it will be essential that you understand the strengths brought by  each care team member and the elements of effective interprofessional relationships among teams. 

● Identify the professions that serve the population of focus 

● What are their qualifications? What is the scope of practice for each?

● What is their relationship to each other? How much care is coordinated vs stand-alone? 

● How/Where do they provide care for the population members?  

● What are the strengths and limitations of the team?  

● How would you interact with these other members of the team? What do you want your peers to know about these potential team members?  

How do each of these professionals connect with physicians and patients? How would you refer a patient for services?  

Part 3: Health advocacy 

Advocacy specifically refers to promoting legislation, policies, systems, or specific budgetary appropriations that  positively affect a health issue and or population. This may occur through decreasing barriers to accessing health  services, providing an infrastructure conducive to effective health promotion programs, or directly increasing the  resources and infrastructure of the public health system.  

● What are some of the local, state, national or international organizations that do advocacy work related to the  population of focus? 

● Identify 2-3 key local, state, national, and when relevant international organizations that do advocacy on behalf  of your population on focus. 

● What are the major areas of advocacy? Why?  

● To whom do they advocate? What has been their track record (successes and challenges)? ● What are the consequences of success or failure?  

● How can providers (you and your peers—nurses, physicians, others?) be involved in advocacy for this  population?

Part 4: Service/ experiential learning 

Please describe the ways in which you were actively engaged with the population of focus, providing service, giving back  to community partners, and/or learning by doing.  

● What activities did your group perform? Were there measurable outcomes or products that could be shared?  ● What needs in the community were being addressed? How were these needs identified and how do they build  on the community’s assets? Are there power issues that result in needs being perpetuated? ● What did you learn from the experience? How might the time you spent in the community shape your approach  to clinical practice?  

Part 5: Acknowledgements 

Please acknowledge the UMMS and community faculty and staff involved in your clerkship, the agencies with whom you worked, and the people you met.   Explain how the team's work was divided in a way that recognizes the unique contributions of each student team member. 

Include the UMass Chan and agencies’ logos.  Often PCHC presentations become a foundation for future presentations, Capstones, scholarly projects and/or publications. If you have used photos or  images with recognizable faces, please include consent forms (available in the shared file folder) when you submit your  final presentation. If you think your clerkship group’s work may merit presentation at a professional conference, we  encourage you to get in touch with one of the members of the PCHC Planning and Oversight Group to discuss.  

• Final presentation slides must be submitted by Monday, September 30 at 8AM EST.

The presentation is rated on the following:

How well did this team:  (5 point scale:  5=Very well – 1= Not well at all) 

1. Use data to define a population OR discuss how data is used in the community?

2. Identify a range of professionals working with the population of interest/ discuss interprofessional care 

3. Discuss advocacy issues of importance to the population 

4. Describe service or experiential learning

5. Work together/explain team roles during the presentation 

6. Answer questions and lead discussion 

Groups are invited to list any community-engaged activities that happen as part of the PCHC into Collaboratory, (https://he.cecollaboratory.com/umms), which is the software for tracking the impact of community-engaged activities at UMass Chan Medical School.

• To learn how to use this software and find a step-by-step document for listing an activity: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1--dvFfTqRuJOP_21C7_VXpyhA4neZcgbeXJTNARsmYE/edit?usp=sharing 

• For a general overview and steps on using Collaboratory:  https://rise.articulate.com/share/7MpCMmQyxeC4cz2chZr8kT7RBV3BTkjV 

Students are expected to attend and provide feedback to at least two other teams’ presentations. For each presentation reviewed, we will ask that you identify the team being reviewed and  then briefly:  

1. Share three insights you gained 

2. Comment on presentation strengths 

3. Note areas for improvement or further exploration 

We will compile all the responses, remove your names and then share the feedback with the faculty and learners on  each team.  

https://umassmed.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eeMmSoyZgeNmvMG 

This year, we've added two independent learning modules to ensure that everyone has access to foundational concepts of population and community health.  Each ILM takes between 45-60 minutes to complete. Each student will be expected to complete the two ILMs and complete the associated post-test, due by the Monday following the PCHC, Sept 30, at 8am.