New Brunswick perform medical examinations for urban minorities. Fac ulty have developed a Healthy Homes Demonstration Project with Isles, Inc, of Trenton. Building on t he previously successful efforts of Dust Does Not Discriminate, Healthy Homes Mold Project and Arrest the Pests in Your Nest, faculty developed a VHS and an English and Spanish language DVD training module on mold and other environmental contaminants in the home. Entitled “the Healthy Homes Video,” the target audience is urban minority residents. Another ongoing Department project is the work being done in the Camden community through many churches and community groups, including Heart of Camden, to address methods of reducing community exposure and risk to toxins in the South Camden area.
The Department is also developing a pi lot community assessment course for Trenton community members to learn how to recognize, assess, evaluate and r emediate community hazards. I n addition, a course in Community Based Sampling is being developed for students in the graduate programs in Public Health, Toxicology, and Environmental Science to learn how to assess, sample and analyze an urban site and to deliver the information to the community.
Faculty are again actively screening homes and residents for Chromium contamination in Jersey City and other Hudson County locations, a residue of past waste dumping practices.
The Department of Family Medicine and Community Health’s Institutional Profile involves students in community-based activities from the first year of medical school through the residency program in family medicine. The goals of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health’s community-based initiatives are:
1. To encourage an ethic of community service and social responsibility in medical students and residents. This involves training them in the context of community service.
2. To equip the next generation of health professionals with the community oriented and culturally sensitive competencies needed t o make a di fference in the lives of their patients and c lients and the communities they serve.
3. To foster partnerships between community organizations and UMDNJ- RWJMS to promote the health of underserved/vulnerable populations.
The Department of Family Medicine and Community Health developed a num ber of community-based initiatives to help meet these goals.
In addition, students may elect to participate in a six-week interdisciplinary Community- Oriented Primary Care (COPC) Assistantship between the first and second year of medical school. Students in COPC, who must complete independent projects, are assigned to a community-based health care or social service organization and learn through special didactic field trips to Newark, Trenton and New Brunswick. During the program, students in this interdisciplinary cohort participate in interactive seminars
covering topics aimed at increasing student awareness about the principles and practice of COPC, health disparities, population assessments, and c ulturally competent clinical care. Students also participate in a tour of local botanicas and bodegas.
At the undergraduate level, during the third-year Family Medicine clerkship, all medical students participate in community-based service learning that has been incorporated into the curriculum. Examples of service learning opportunities clerkship students can participate in include group health discussions with the Adult Substance Abuse Program in the Middlesex County Jail; observation and participation in group work at Damon House Drug Rehabilitation; health discussions in local high schools; nutrition teaching sessions in conjunction with the SNAP-Ed and H ead Start; co-facilitation of partial hospitalization Wellness Group at UBHC; a wellness presence at Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen and many others. These activities are complemented by didactic sessions on community-oriented primary care and principles of population-based health care.
The New Brunswick RWJUH Family Medicine Residents provide quality primary care services to many of greater New Brunswick’s uninsured and underinsured citizens, many of whom are not documented. Patients are seen in the Family Medicine Service within RWJUH and at clinics and other outpatient sites: Family Medicine at Monument Square; St. John’s Clinic; soup kitchens; homeless shelters; senior citizen apartments; long-term care facilities and in patients’ own homes.
Additionally, the New Brunswick RWJUH Family Medicine Residents provide primary care services to the greater New Brunswick community. As part of their training, all second-year residents participate in a cross-cultural community medicine rotation at St. John's Health Center in New Brunswick. The goal of the rotation is to encourage residents to practice in medically underserved urban areas by offering a rewarding learning experience that enhances their skills in providing culturally sensitive, community-oriented primary care to a diverse and indigent population. Residents learn about different multicultural populations and b ecame familiar with managing clinical issues prevalent in the community (e.g. lead poisoning, immunizations, TB exposure, HIV, substance use, health problems exacerbated by poverty and homelessness). They participate in community-based health care activities including seeing patients at a child health conference, a pap/mammogram screening, and volunteering at a local soup kitchen. Community site visits included the Middlesex County Board of Social Services, a homeless shelter, a botanica and bodega, and home visits accompanied by St. John's prenatal and immunization outreach workers. In addition, residents conduct community presentations at the Edison Job Corps Academy, Ozanam Men's Homeless Shelter, and Naomi's Way, a transitional housing facility for women and their children. Presentation topics include personal hygiene, nutrition, and respiratory illnesses. A s part of their longitudinal community medicine experience, residents also participate in community- based activities such as school physicals, health fairs, pap and mammogram screenings, prostate cancer screenings, and community presentations.
All residents, first year through the third year, and many faculty members provide other educational and clinical care services to local communities. The following services were provided by residents and residency faculty:
UMDNJ-Annual Institutional Profile, September 1, 2012 PUBLIC/COMMUNITY SERVICE ACTIVITIES
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Community Affiliation Services
St. John's Health Center, New Brunswick Clinical care for indigent populations American Academy of Family Physicians Tar Wars - Anti-smoking presentations for
local 4th and 5th graders
Women's Health Center, Somerville Women's clinical health services
Geriatric home visits Medical care for home-bound patients in the local New Brunswick area
Naomi's Way, Catholic Charities, Presentations on preventive health care New Brunswick
Old Bridge Township Elementary, School physicals and pre-participation Middle, and High Schools examinations
Ozanam Family Shelter, Edison Presentations on preventive health care Ozanam Men's Homeless Shelter, Presentations on preventive health care Catholic Charities, New Brunswick
New Jersey State Division of Medical care for over 250 patients Developmental Disabilities and their caregivers
New Brunswick High School Medical care for teenage moms and their Parent/Infant Care Center (PIC-C) children
Parker Nursing Home, Piscataway and Continuing education on medically related
New Brunswick topics for nurses and staff
Center for Healthy Aging – Patient care for the elderly and employees
Parker Stonegate at Parker Stonegate
Puerto Rican Action Board (PRAB) Presentations for parents of children in and Robert Wood Johnson University PRAB’s Day Care Centers about childhood
Hospital health
Read Across America Read books to local elementary and middle school students
Robert Wood Johnson University Health screenings, particularly for cancer Hospital, Community Health Fairs
Special Olympics Team doctors
Woodbridge Township Health Screenings for breast, uterine and prostate
Edison Job Corps Academy Screening students by providing physicals and medical clearance
Martin and Edith Stein Hospice Clinical care for the elderly Matheny Center of Medicine and Dentistry Patient care
Womanspace Inc. Individualized support and care for women and their children who have been victims of domestic abuse.
The Center for Healthy Families and Cultural Diversity, within the Department of Family Medicine, was created in 1988 to improve the delivery of culturally responsive, family centered health care to diverse populations. Programmatic activities of the Center include technical assistance and consultation, education and training, and research and evaluation. E ach year, faculty give invited lectures, seminars, and w orkshops on culturally and linguistically competent care to a wide variety of health care professionals and organizations, including academic medical centers, hospitals, ambulatory care facilities, community organizations, managed care plans, and governmental agencies in the United States and abroad.