Health Sciences Conference Notes

Notes Taken at the Western Association of Advisors for the Health Professions:WAAHP of the NAAHP Conerence - Submitted by D. Redd

23 - 26 APR 2015

Following are my notes I wrote to share with my counseling colleagues:

There is no repository of Power Points so I am getting copies of as many of them possible. Let me know if you have a particular interest.

What Pre-health Students & Advisors Need to Know About Ethics & Excelling on the Multiple Mini-interview by Robert Klitzman, M.D., Professor of psychiatry at Columbia University AKA Bioethics 101: Session for Experienced Advisors:
I sat through the session thinking of how could I apply the information to our students & …
…I realized we should tell all our students to take bioethics through a class or workshop at a university.
They could even take it online.
They may not pass the interviews without the related vocabulary & method to frame their responses.
Some of the topics:
87 year old woman calls her doc & refuses to talk to anyone else… yet doc for the first time in months was to have dinner with his family
Rights of the Unborn Fetus
Cancer Treatment Trials
Vaccines
Children’s Rights
Parent’s Rights
Children in Research Projects
Risk vs Benefits
Work-life Balance
Engage by Telephone With Patient to Determine Urgency
Autonomy: Whose? Limits?
Beneficence: Doing good - Sister not wanting to donate a kidney to a sibling… What to do or say?

(P.S. From real life: One of the WAAHP Leadership is donating a kidney to her husband.)

Non-maleficence: Avoiding Harm
Expect to answer questions about Obama Care
Consequential Approach: Greatest good for the greatest number of people
What about the minority group?
Address Transparent & Fair Processes
May Not Have Right/Wrong Answer
Familiarity of Bioethics in Foreign Countries – Needed!
New Doctors Leaving Rural Areas After Two - Three Years
Big USA Problem: Docs stay in Rural Areas only long enough to have loans forgiven; Docs not willing to work in rural areas; Rural healthcare needs are not adequately addressed
BOTTOM LINE:
Students need to know the terminology of bioethics & how to set up problems & issues –
Get our students to take university level BIOETHICS!
Think Critically & Logically
Think of Cost Benefits

NAAHP Best Practices for Institutions & Advisors

~HEALTH SCIENCES ADVISING IS A DISTINCT PROFESSION~

We talked in small groups.
More focused on universities
Suggested that I contact one health sciences school and have them spend the day at MC – Include the students coming out to form panels.
I direct you to the Best Practices materials on the NAAHP/WAAHP Websites

Membership Business Meeting
They are begging community colleges to join.
The Community College Standout Person is:

Dr. Carmen Rexach (Prof. of Biology) Phone: (909) 274-4223 E-mail: crexach@mtsac.edu Mt. San Antonio College, Room 60-2109 1100 N Grand Ave, Walnut, CA 91789 Visit our website: http://instruction2.mtsac.edu/caduceus Carmen Rexler of Mt. San Antonio College where she heads a Post-Bac program and hosts the yearly Caduceus Conference. Please get to know her.

Eileen Tom of Orange Coast College: Spearheading Community College Membership Initiative: I have volunteered to help her.
WAAHP will now be a stand-alone organization
Has increased membership from 100 to 250 over 10 years.
I joined in 1994
I find that they send resources that are worth more than the membership fee.
The WAAHP is attempting to be the national leader in community college health sciences advising.
Due to my active involvement in the career development associations, Moorpark College needs additional representation (Donny? Lydia? Lynn? Biology Faculty?)
I am dropping off the NAAHP committee for community colleges because they have not been active.
I will join the WAAHP Community College Initiative.
Short fall of geriatricians (1% MD & 3% of RN are trainee to work specifically with the aging population).
How to make it sexy profession for young health care students?

AAMC: MCAT: New Exam: www.amc/org/mcat2015exam
Critical Thinking
Think like Scientist
Underscores Role of Sociocultural Impact on Health
Underscores Influence of Socioeconomics on Health
Belief that the Score is More Accurate
Four Sections
Requires Broader Preparation
Biochemistry, Psychology, Sociology are new additions
5 big ideas in Natural Science
Slightly more time allowed per question should help English as second language and disabled applicants
Overall more questions
6 hours and 15 minutes
KHAN Academy Videos are good for students who cannot afford to pay for test prep classes.
Holistic Review Practices in Medical School Admissions – Transforming into One that Includes Empathy- A Panel of Medical School Admission Officers:
Five Aspirant Case Studies:
African American Single Mom, Financially Advantage; Above Average GPA, High MCAT Score
19 years of age; First Generation; Vietnamese; Volunteers in LGBT Center; has A.S. in Biology
27 year old Salvadorian Female Immigrant; Good Grades
White Male; Average Student; Struggled in O-Chem
23 years of age; Native American Male from Urban City; Disabled and Uses a Wheel Chair
THESE CASE STUDY STUDENTS WERE ACCEPTED INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL!
What does it mean to be competitive for Medical School?
Some medical schools have taken the hiring of new faculty out of the hands of faculty so that more sensitive professors are selected.
Some now use psychometric tools to help select faculty.
Tie breaking usually goes to the underrepresented applicant.
Students need to translate their experiences into a statement of who they are & their own mission and then to match their mission to the medical school.
Students need to use the MSR & do their own homework.
Students should not play the numbers game & apply to numerous (too many) schools.
They should match their mission to the schools mission.
They should check to see if the schools are accepting out of state applicants.
Many students are wasting their money on selecting schools that are not a good match for them.
They should match their academic records to what the schools are accepting.
Some schools are having trial run for students who don’t qualify
They see how they do in a first year watered down medical certificate program & select the ones who do well.
Students with low GPAs are getting into medical schools when they encounter a compassionate advisor who gives them advice on how to turn around their situation.
There needs to be a tolerance of advisors and students for ambiguity.

MMI Tips: Coaching Students To Do Their Best:
Look up Business Etiquette because this session was so large a bunch of us had to sit in the hallway and could not see the graphics.
The bottom line is that our students have to know business etiquette.
Remember if they have been offered an interview they are liked & they have to mess up to be rejected.
A few always do mess up because: They forget to shake hands; forget to address panel members by title; lack of enthusiasm; discomfort in their clothes; bad postings on the Internet; etc.

Nutrition as a Discipline & a Health Profession (Panel) SA109@columbia.edu – Sharon R. Akabas, Ph.D., Columbia University- Institute of Human Nutrition
B.S. now for certification (CNS & RDN) but moving towards M.S. as industry standard
Needed, partially, because medical doctors do not study nutrition.
Cellular & gene level changes can be made.
Certification in Nutritional Science (CNS) – M.S. or Ph.D. in Nutrition + continue to earn CEUs
Nutrition is becoming tool of industry for health care & not sick care.
They showed us slides of families around the world with their week’s supply of food laid out before them.
Water is going to be limiting reagent in near future.
Nutritional Related Employment Settings:
Advocacy
Architecture
Agriculture
Business & Industry
Clinical Dietetics
Consultant/Private Practice
Communications (Journalism, Media)
Culinary Schools & Ventures
Education & Research
Food & Nutrition Management/Industry & Healthcare Settings (hospitals & long term care facilities)
Global Development Health
Pharmaceutical Industry
Public Health Nutrition
Etc.
Providing Copy of Power Point
Let students do what they love to do as undergraduates & then go to graduate level programs

Dinner With Break-out group (I was with the WAAHP’s President-Elect’s Table):
Other than talking about what a great time we had at the conferences in Sante Fe & Atlanta, I learned that one or both of the osteopathic schools in Florida are no longer using letters of recommendations from Physicians because they all lie…
Also, they have eliminated MCAT scores because they found a correlation between GPA & SAT scores that they believe to more a more accurate indicator of success.
To watch to see if it becomes a trend…

Advisory Council: Presentation on Media: How We Talk to Our Clients/Student, Their Parents, & the Media – Mitigate Complaints About Health Sciences Advisors:
Watch the tone of our voices because we represent them (NAAHP/WAAHP)!!!
Watch our body language.
Have a genuine interest!
Show enthusiasm!
Stand up when we talk if we need to raise our energy level.
Practice sound bites.
We are front line for recruitment.
Remember first impression rule.
The Health Sciences Schools are paying attention to us & they will complain if we make mistakes.
Be consistent.
Refresh our data.
ACOM gave us an elevator speech handout that included sound bites for our students (please quote them also when we post the information): Audiologists; Chiropractic: Dentists; Medical Doctors; Naturopathic Physicians; Nursing: Occupational Therapy; Doctors of Optometry; Osteopathic Medicine; Pharmacists; Physical Therapists; Physician Assistants; Podiatrists; Public Health; Speech-language Pathologists; Veterinarian
We need to develop our media skills & ability to use info graphics.
We need to read the literature and be able to articulate it.
Students are complaining about us to the higher ups at the health science professional institutions.
These complaints are pervasive.
For each student, make them feel welcome by outright telling them thank you for coming in to meet with me.
Show every single one that we value them.
Forget how overburden we are.
Remember how we are perceived.
Smile.
Be punctual.
Dress nicely.
We are role models for our students.
They need confidence and trust in us.
Don’t eat or drink while with clients & media people.
Use breath mints.
What we say & how we say it impacts people’s lives.
Don’t respond to questions we can’t answer.
Always be prepared.
Recognize our personal biases and set them aside.
Always remember that even students, who we think will not make it, will make it.
A lot of them graduate go to grad school & then apply.
They grow up & figure out how to get what they want.
Don’t be the person who had discouraged them!
When they make it into their program, they are questioned about us.
They want us to set a tone so that they what to come back to us and help upcoming students.
Headline It, Prove It, Visualize It, Bottom Line It

Headline

Prove

Visualize

Bottom Line

Also, don’t say too much to reporters.
Give Information
Be Short
Be Accurate
Don’t speak outside our knowledge area.
Reporter’s follow-up questions will stump us if we go above our knowledge level.
The American Dental’s Association’s www.ExploreHealthCareers.org is the number one site to use with our students
We are front line impacting Health Care in USA!

Going Beyond the Borders of the Community College to University Transfer: Best Practices for Helping Pre-Health Students Navigate the Challenges of Transfer:
Here goes:
It is difficult for people to realize the negative occurrences on their campuses are not true for other campuses.
During the session she revealed was generalist & not a pre-professional health sciences specialist. Many campuses such as our campus have such specialists.
They are blaming the Students Success Act for the failure of counselors having specialties.
I suggested that as a team the counselors fight for specialization and use 4CA as their political support.
Otherwise, I think the session was great and was presented by a future leader in health sciences counseling. She has done a lot of health sciences advisement on her own time. She is to be commended.
What the Medical & other Health Sciences Schools are Saying:
Students are taking too many lower division science courses at CC and are running out of financial aid.
And, then her co-presenter said just the opposite. ????
Having to major in science mindset (not true of course).
Students don’t understand admissions statistics and the competitive nature of getting into programs.
The universities are claiming that community colleges lack pre-professional school health sciences advisors.
Helping with science completion rates at some community colleges is tough & the HUM Waiver approval is above the dean managing counseling (lack of trust in counselors and their deans) on some campuses.
Orange Coast Community College has an accelerated pre-med program (approximately 24 students per group) to help the students get into the science courses.
The demographic are of this group is mostly affluent upper middle class students.
The bottom line:

COMMUNITY COLLEGE COUNSELORS NEED TO JOIN WAAHP!

(This group is expensive to join but the universities pay the memberships. Community college folks are asking for a lower rate since we have to pay for it ourselves.

Cultural Competency in Health Care - Pallative Care-CSU (San Marcos) – Helen McNeal:
“We are all in this life together… – The ultimate challenge is to live together, caring for one another with respect & understanding for what makes us each unique… Till death us do part.”

15% of USA Health Care Workers are CSU Graduates!

Except for medical doctors…

CSU Institute for Palliative Care: www.csupalliativecare.org
National Center for Cultural Competence: www.nccc.Georgetown.edu
Our responsibility as counselors & advisors is to get our students, future health future health care professionals, to educate themselves in cultural competency.
FYI: “Palliative care is comfort care given to a patient who has a serious or life-threatening disease, such as cancer, from the time of diagnosis & throughout the course of illness.”
To Ease Suffering!
Treatment is a team of H.S. Professionals.
It is not hospice care which is there for when the patient has less than six months of life remaining.
Less reimburse by insurance for palliative care.
Palliative care is not always for the dying.
CSU System is one of the most diverse in the country.
It appears to me that the CSU (CA State University) system is considered a national leader in addressing cultural competency which makes it a leader in helping with cultural competency in palliative care medicine.
Took case study approach.
Cultural Competency-Cultural Sensitivity-Cultural Humility (am I humble about what I may know about this person?)
Have you & your H.S. students spent in depth time learning about a culture other than your/their own?
Pay attention to what culture can teach us about each other.
The AAMC’s statement on cultural competency is actually very limiting in its expectation.
Some issues overlooked by doctors: Need to speak to some patients in their native language, for example a patient in extreme pain had her pain alleviated when someone said to the doctor, “Have you spoken to her in Spanish?” And, when the answer was no found a translator for her.; for patients who are dying, listen to what they want to happen to their children; Health Care providers who speak other languages usually do not have the depth of language needed so bilingual translators are needed; some patients do not understand the modern world & its technology.
REMEMBER: “Another person’s culture is not their poor attempt at being you…”
Also recognize that we each are a culture of one – we are each unique
Do not buy into generic beliefs of being Latino, First Nation, etc.
Not everyone connects with everyone…
So please ask someone to help.
If a doctor is not getting needed answers, then he/she needs to ask a member of their team to help.
The Home Health Aid is usually the wisest on what the patient needs (but is often not turned to for help).
Bottom Line: We need to help our students realize that being educated as a health care professional extends beyond minimum admissions preparation & everyone needs to be able to address a culture of one.
People are dying due to a lack of medical professionals with cultural competency.
WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)? Your turn as a patient will come & you will want to be addressed as a culture of one.
Poor patients are getting diagnosed in emergency rooms & are going home doctoring themselves with folk medicine.
Look to connect with community type promotoras (a lay Hispanic/Latino community member who receives specialized training to provide basic health education in the community without being a professional health care worker).
They exist with other names in other communities.

CAS Updates Covered: PTCAS, AACOMAS, PharmCAS, AMCAS, AACPMAS (these are about the applications for admissions):
Students can brand themselves
No best major for PT albeit the majority select Exercise Science
Pharmacy Schools hold the strictest code of conduct for applicants.
No cut and pasting into the application due to past practice of students copying personal statements from the Internet.

High Tech & High Touch = Much Higher Success! LinkedIn & Relationship Marketing for Adding Value to the Health Professions Industry & LinkedIn 101: How to Use LinkedIn Most Effectively in Your Day to Day Advising by Kevin Knebl – Combined Notes from Keynote Address & Break Out Session:
He emphasized that LinkedIn is Social Networking.
LinkedIn is turning on features for college students.
What we need to teach to Health Sciences Students:
He treats it as a rolodex – online business card
He uses Facebook as his online cocktail party.
He uses Twitter.
I am connected with him and if you want to connect with him, use me as a reference.
One opportunity to make a good first impression online
If your grandmother can’t see it, then don’t post it.
Low tech – He continues to start each day by hand writing at least 10 personal notes.
He says email notes are OK.
Optimize Profile by using the 120 characters (headline) and 2000 characters (Summary)
Post your own & your employer’s white papers.
Post video of yourself presenting.
Do Advance Search & save it.
Have a cover page (Skylines are nice).
READ:
Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Speak (say hello) to everyone around you in all aspects of your life!
Divide your LinkedIn Contacts into groups of A, B, C for touching
A = 15 day touch
B = 30 day touch
C = 90 day touch
Touches:
Email
Personal Note
Phone Call
Drop by in person
Use the personal interests of your contacts in your touches: i.e. news articles about their alma maters
My Own Note: Thank people for connecting with you.