Students partner with community organizations to improve health outcomes

Students choose their particular health care professions for many reasons.

But what they all have in common is a passion to improve the lives of people in the communities they serve.

UNMC’s service learning experiences, facilitated by the Interprofessional Service Learning Academy (ISLA), are one way students from various colleges and units can use their classroom skills and engage with community organizations.

Interprofessional focus Several UNMC colleges/units have faculty representation in the Interprofessional Service Learning Association, including: Dean Collier, Pharm.D., College of Pharmacy; Tina Flores, M.D., College of Medicine; Margaret Kaiser, Ph.D., College of Nursing; Ruth Margalit, M.D., College of Public Health; Wayne Stuberg, Ph.D., Munroe-Meyer Institute; and Glenda Woscyna, School of Allied Health Professions. Contact Dr. Margalit at rmargalit@unmc.edu for more information about the ISLA.

“The combining of service with learning transforms the classroom learning into knowledge and skills used as professionals, while sustaining our commitment to making a difference in the world,” said Ruth Margalit, M.D., associate professor in UNMC’s College of Public Health and director of the ISLA.

More than 160 students from UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha partnered with community groups to identify needs, organize and carry-out a project to improve the health and well-being of the organization’s members.

The projects required creativity, leadership, innovation and interprofessional collaboration.

This fall, these students were advised and assisted by 25 faculty members from many of UNMC’s colleges.

The students recently discussed their projects at the annual service learning experience presentation ceremony. Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., provided opening remarks at the ceremony and College of Medicine Dean John Gollan, M.D., Ph.D., handed out awards.

Community programs included:

• City-Sprouts community garden, healthy eating and physical activity project;
  
• Decreasing the bone marrow donor deficit in black adults;
  
• Douglas County Department of Corrections STD education screening and treatment project;
  
• The EMPOWER project with the YWCA and victims of Domestic violence;
  
• Heartland Equine Therapeutic Riding Academy (HETRA) project;
  
• SHARING clinics project;
  
• Sienna Francis House homeless shelter project; and
  
• H.E.L.P. HIV/AIDS Education for Life Program with the Nebraska AIDS Project.

Several of these programs will continue as ongoing service learning projects.