CASE STATEMENT: WHY THE CDU ADVANTAGE IS INTEGRAL TO THE UNIVERSITY MISSION
PART 1 OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES
The CDU Advantage is both unique and innovative in its application of the University’ s approach to educating future healthcare leaders. Central to its application are the five pillars on which it stands:
• Research Experience: Excellence in Specialized Knowledge and Research.
• Social Justice: Advocacy based a broad cultural diversity awareness.
• Global-International Experience: A focus on comparative health disparities in the global setting.
• Community Engagement: Experiential Education through engagement with underserved communities.
• Health Policy: Education focused on the sociopolitical dynamics of health as a key part of leadership training and development.
I. BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
• The CDU Advantage is unique, innovative, and groundbreaking. It is based on 54 years of lessons learned in implementation and practice through the University’ s various initiatives and academic departments.
• Research is highly empirical, most often based on examining existing conditions experienced by people in the most vulnerable health straits.
• This strategy promotes the goal of maintaining the highest quality of life for the most amount of people.
• It offers solutions that can be a demonstration for effective legislation, greater public passion, and enthusiasm for a world where all people have a reasonable chance for a healthy and productive life.
• The task of eradicating healthcare disparities in underserved communities is a long-term, sustainable, and cost-effective endeavor.
• It cultivates the development of healthcare leaders who are grounded in understanding and tackling the realities of living in resource-deficient communities.
• Instructional training takes on a non-traditional approach by integrating an active community faculty component as part of the model.
• At base is the holistic approach that healthcare inequities are tied to quality of life social determinants including poverty, homelessness, mental health conditions, interpersonal violence, and substance abuse.
II. LESSONS FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS
• Encouraged by University administrators, teaching and research faculty have embraced the CDU Advantage as the defining element in a 21st Century medical education rubric fundamental to student training.
• This strategy underscores the important value that regardless of social status or ability to pay, clients should always be treated equally and receive the best care available.
• Community residents are resilient; they have unique coping skills that enhance their ability to be active partners in the treatment process.
• Healthcare practitioners with patient care responsibilities must recognize the value of being active listeners who are attuned to the importance of effective communication as an important pathway to successful treatment outcomes.
III. LESSONS FOR PATIENTS AND COMMUNITY RESIDENTS
• With the CDU Advantage as a guiding principle, healthcare practitioners are trained by skilled faculty to develop the sensitivity and recognize important cultural cues to effectively work in local, underserved communities.
• A large percentage of the professionals trained using this methodology grew up in an underserved community and have a strong commitment of“ doing well by doing good” in elevating the quality of care for people who have had similar life experiences.
• Many such practitioners committed to community healthcare service are willing to assess patients’ life challenges in a personal way and use their resources and time to actively work for eradication of healthcare inequities.
• Many are willing to adapt their personal interactive style, willingness to learn a new language, and become accustomed to prevailing cultural customs to bridge the distance between themselves and their clients, if that is what it takes to offer high quality healthcare service.
CDU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE | PG. 09