Future Curiosities
NYLF students practicing OMM
The lectures helped prepare the students to tackle the case studies that the student hosts presented on asthma and TB. Case-based learning (CLB) is one of the foundations of the COM curriculum and was a pillar of the immersive experience, giving students a taste of what medical school is like at UNE COM. On the first day, the case integration focused on a 7-year old girl who presented to an urgent care facility for difficulty breathing. The student hosts presented the slides and encouraged students to ask questions related to the history of present illness (HPI), a standard procedure during patient intakes. During the exercise, they also dove into past medical history, social history, and family history of the patient. Student doctor Wozer reflects on having the opportunity to express her creative side during the event. “I created a whole other person,” she says, her eyes lit with uninhibited avidity. “That was really fun actually,” she explains. “Most of our faculty use real patient cases and just take out identifiers, but I just came up with somebody because I don’t have any patients to pull from, so it was fun doing the research and think, what’s a realistic case? What are risk factors or contributing factors that aren’t too predictable, and have some reality thrown in and have some distractors you can throw in… is it an allergy or is it asthma.” Part of the fun distractors included giving the 9-year old an allergy to strawberries and living with a grandmother who was presently ill in order to have the students consider whether or not those factors could be contributing to her current symptoms. The student hosts also reviewed the different skills that are needed to gather subjective (HPI, review of systems, etc.) versus objective (vital signs, physical exam, etc.) information. NYLF students were then questioned whether they thought it was an infectious process and were asked to help formulate a treatment plan for the patient. By the end of the session, students had an understanding of how to apply newfound clinical knowledge in a case-based learning environment.
Anyone who participated in the event could feel the excitement in the room as the NYLF students practiced the osteopathic manipulation medicine (OMM) techniques they learned only minutes beforehand. Remembering their faces, Jenna states, “a lot of them came in and had no idea what osteopathy was and there were a few who were just super pumped about it. You could see their eyes light up and got the sense that they were genuinely inspired. A few of them even understood the amount of privilege it was to be able to see somebody’s heart. A real person who lived on this earth donated their body for us to learn from. That’s huge. It’s such a privilege. So to see people who are 15, 16, 17 years old walk away with a ton of respect for these people who donated their bodies, that was really cool.” Not only will they have opportunity to share their stories with their family and friends, they have a greater understanding of osteopathic medicine and its application. The NYLF students weren’t the only ones who learned something from the event. “It really reinforced for me how well people learn when they can learn in many different ways,” Jenna reflected on her experience. “Everybody is so different, even though they have a similar interest, having a